


Days Gone By

by BubblyBarry



Category: CrankGameplays - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF, ethan nestor - Fandom, mark fischbach - Fandom, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Apocalypse, CrankGameplays - Freeform, M/M, Markiplier - Freeform, Post-Apocalypse, Survival, Survival Horror, Zombies, crankiplier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2020-05-29 14:57:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19402663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubblyBarry/pseuds/BubblyBarry
Summary: I always knew something like this would happen. The way that science had been going the past few years was leading up to this point. I never imagined it would be this bad however, but now, I had to live with it. Day in, and day out. That was my life. As long as I woke up the next morning without a knife to my throat, I was ok.***The year was 2034 and the world had been plagued by a deadly, infectious virus that increases a human's Dopamine levels to extremes, causing psychosis, impairment, paranoia, and immense joy to anything, including hurting themselves and others. The virus is spread through the consumption of an Anti-Depressant medication that went untested, causing many individuals to turn into 'Drudgers', or at least, that's what Ethan called them.Ethan must adapt and navigate in a world where danger and death are waiting around every corner, his only objective is to survive. He just wants to get through each day, still breathing, his heart beating. His friends, companions, and everyone else he has met in this world were just there to help him live on to the next dawn.And this is all he cared about.That is, until he met him.





	1. Chapter 1

## Chapter 1

"Hurry up!" I was already running as fast as I could, I feared if I tried to push faster my legs wouldn't be able to keep up with my body and I'd fall over, defeating the purpose of running at this moment.

"We need to get back to the camp and get into the house as fast as possible!" Don't you think I know that already?! I didn't have enough breath left to reply with that snide remark. So I kept running, dirt flying up from the impact my feet made when they hit the dry ground of the forest. In the moment, I almost forgot where we had come to get here, I'm guessing that was because of the oxygen I was losing every stride that was barely being returned to my body.

"Their falling behind! Don't slow down now!" I wasn't going to, I couldn't unless I wanted to be brutally murdered, eaten alive or forced to become one of them. Neither was a good end, so I just kept running with everything I could. The Drudger's were tracking behind, but I barely saw them as I couldn’t risk turning my head for too long, and running in the forest without looking in front of your has proven to be a dangerous move, especially when there were lots of trees and foliage lacing the ground and the air directly in front of me.

Eventually, we came to a road, and we zipped right, still running until we got to a big fence, barb wire tracing the top, it had rusted over the months as I wasn’t sure how to take care of it. We approached the gate, and I unlocked it quickly with the 3 keys, taking the padlocks off one at a time. We both slid in, closing up the gates faster then we opened them, watching as the Drudger's stopped at the chainlinks, clawing, screaming, swearing, spouting nonsensical things until they slowly began to give up and walk off. I stopped then to breath, I felt nothing but pain in my lungs with each inhale and exhale. 

Just as I was starting to calm down, something whizzed by my ear. It was so fast, it was almost in slow motion, and I didn’t hear the bang until after, as if my senses were delayed. 

“Get down!” I did as he said, letting my feet drop out from under me, hitting the ground harshly on my knees and elbows. Everything returned to normal speed after this, and I heard multiple bangs from a gun above my head. Then shouts of an almost inhuman nature, and then silence, my breathing almost echoing from my spot on the dirt.

“That psycho had a gun! How!? How!?” I didn't have an answer. I just slowly rose up from my spot on the ground and found my bearings again, walking over to the metal staircase which lead up to the house. I made it up, opened the door, and flopped onto the ground, finally feeling a little save, the sound of the bullet centimeters away from my ear replaying over and over again in my head, making my stomach turn.

My name is Ethan Mark Nestor. I had another last name that attached onto my last one with a hyphen, but I don't really remember it now and I didn't really need to remember it anyways. I could also forget my middle name too, as I hadn't said that to anyone for what felt like years at this point. 

The person who was shouting obvious remarks to me while we were running, and the person who shot my attacker was named Barry Mercedes Marcez. He had been with me since day one of this hell hole, and he told me his name then, and I still remember it now. He was standing in front of me, cursing over and over as he normally did, his mind blown open at the fact that one of those Drudgers was bearing arms. I looked up for a moment and saw him running his hands through his dark brown hair under his snapback, the faded pink part in the middle falling into his eyes.

"What the fuck man? What the fuck?!" His voice got louder near the end of the sentence. I continued breathing hard but mustered up the energy to shrug and reply.

"I really wish I had an answer for you dude. I have never once seen a Drudger use any time of machinery, gun, car, flash light, anything like that. So this is as much a mystery to me as it is to you." My voice might have come off as sarcastic, but I didn't mean for it to. Barry knew I wasn't being rude, and just as genuinely confused as he was. I didn't move from my spot faced down on the floor for a while, I had caught my breath again and my body heat returned to normal, but now it was my mind that was running at top speeds.

Drudgers, the things that were chasing after us, were used to be humans who have been turned into psychotic, mindless, killing machines all thanks to an experimental antidepressant that was released to the public before it should have been. I wasn’t much of a scientist, nor did I take the medication when it came out, but I understood it altered the dopamine in your system and displaced it throughout the human mind until you got joy and happiness out of everything. This quickly turned people into emotion hungry monsters who find joy in hurting themselves and others, and a few even find joy in forcing the defective pills down survivors throats to turn them into fellow Drudgers. 

I had to experience that first hand. I didn’t even know my mom as taking antidepressants until she tried to give them to me. I remember her holding back a giggle as she told me that I was sick, and these pills would make me feel better. I almost believed her, because she was my mother, but then when I hesitated and she screamed at me, throwing the bottle of pills to the ground and trying to tackle me, laughing maniacally all the while, I bolted. 

I ran out of my house at that point, not knowing what to do or where to go, the only thing in my possession was my cell phone, hanging on by 15% of battery, and a backpack filled with nothing but some unfinished collage work and loose pencils. I ran that day, and I felt like I had been running ever since.

I don't know exactly when it happened - humanity depleting and surrendering to the insanity that is Drudgers and the infected alike - but it happened quickly. One day I was living my normal life, going to college and studying pointless things to get a dead end job, fast forward 2 weeks and I'm running away from murderers, criminals, and sociopaths. The police tried to help at the beginning, but they were quickly overpowered and either forced the pills or killed because they fought back, and the government followed suit. 

There were more survivors in the earlier weeks, I wish I knew the days, just because, but I didn’t even know what day it was now. The last time I saw a working clock was about 4 months ago, it read 5 something… but I couldn't remember how to read analogue clocks so I didn't know the minutes, and last time I saw a phone or calendar to tell me the date was when I was at my house the day my mom went crazy. 

I met Barry in a bigger group. He was with about 3 people I was traveling with 4. The people I was traveling with I barely knew, I had run into them in the streets and once we figured out none of us were infected, we stuck together. I think one of them was a girl named Mika, but that's the only person I remembered. Once we came in contact with Barry's group, I thought we would be stronger, and be able to build a safe place, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

The conflict started about food. Someone wanted to put all our food together and divide it amongst ourselves, and another wanted to have it every man for themselves. Then it was which way we were going to head, and which road we were going to take. Soon arguments broke out about the littlest things, and there were a few people I know who were about to resort to horrible measures, and Barry knew it too. This is when we started planning on leaving the group, out of everyone there Barry and I didn't fight or argue and either always agreed on something or compromised, so when he mentioned leaving with me, I thought it would be what was best.

We were a night too late, as the night before we were going to leave, one of the other members fed those pills to everyone else. Everyone but me and Barry who refused food and drink that night in case something like this were to happen. They all began to argue as they did, but this time more loud, and violent. Me and Barry grabbed what we could hold and made a run for it, just before someone pulled out a long, sharp butcher's knife and began stabbing wildly up and down, back and forth, in and out, until nothing but dark red blood covered their arms up to their elbows, and ran down their face like some sick and twisted tear drips. I can still hear their laugh exactly how it was. Pure joy, not a pinch of sadness was in it.

"Ethan man, you're just going to lay on the floor?" Barry asked me, breaking my concentration. I came back to the real world - the real world that didn't even seem real most days - I huffed and climbed onto my knees, looking at Barry. He sat on his mattress, leaning on his hands. His tanned skin contrasting with his light coloured shirt. His hair was sticking out of a dark grey snapback that had definitely seen better days, the embroidered pattern that sat in the middle now a mess of loose strings and bad memories. He looked at the ceiling, his brown eyes were bigger than a normal persons, at least that's what I thought.

"That Drudger…" 

"He had a gun. I know." I stated, standing up slowly and going to reload my gun that was in my bag. It was out of bullets from the beginning of us getting chased. I only had two bullets in it when we left, because I thought we were just going to look for water, but then Barry spotted a supermarket and that rest is history.

"I just don't know what to say to that." He said, I took my gun out and filled it with bullets, heard the satisfying click of the chamber as I closed it. I never owned a gun before this. 

"We do what we always do - move on from it." I stated. Barry then stood up in a huff and started towards the door, holding it open and facing me. 

"No. That's what you do." With that he stormed outside, letting the wooden door swing shut with the force or gravity. I watched from the window of our makeshift house as he took off to the fence perimeter and examined the dead Drudger. 

Barry was on a quest for something I think. I wasn't sure what it was, as I never asked. A feeling? A dream? A girl? A guy? I didn't know what he was searching for. It might have had something to do with the small pink t-shirt he kept in his bag, the one with the unicorn on it that he sometimes held onto at night and cried into. I never asked because, even though he was the only one I trusted in this world, it was this world I trusted him in, not the past one, and it was this worlds Barry I knew and needed to know, not the past one. Just as I was to him. A current world version of myself, that had orphaned my past and forgotten about my future. 

I let Barry go have his moment. He wasn't really mad at me, just mad at the situation, and he was confused. I had been around many Drudgers, and so had he, and this was the first time we had ever seen one with a weapon other than a knife. I didn't think they had enough mental abilities to work a gun, but I'd been surprised by them before. Maybe it was one that wasn't that far gone, or maybe so far gone that they were developing some of their more human characteristics back. Either way, it was dead now by the hand of my friend, and we didn't have to worry about it unless we one again. Barry needed to learn how to let things go, this was one of his weaknesses. 

I pulled out a pad of paper and sat on the edge of my bed - or old mattress that lay on the uneven, mismatched floor tiles - and opened to a page with many locations scribbled down on it in various pens, the colour changing every do often when you could notice the old pen running out of ink. I started marking beside the one that said "Plaza with Zellers. Infested. Unable to fully explore. Most Drudgers came out to chase us. Unaware if they all returned to the plaza." Is what I wrote down. I jotted notes beside all of the locations me and Barry had been to, in case we didn't completely spelunk the area and had to go back. Before I put the paper and pen back into my bag, I wrote another note down beside it.

"A Drudger from this place used a gun." Once that was written, I stuffed the book away and zipped up my bag.

Nightfall seemed to come quicker today, it might have been because the summer was coming to an end. I wasn't looking forward to winter. I wasn't too sure where me and Barry were geographically, but I knew we were in between Micigian or Ohio, meaning when winter came into full force, it would be snowing and cold. Our house, though it was fairly sturdy, was not ready for any sort of winter weather. Because winter hadn't come yet with Drudgers involved in the ecosystem I wondered if they would all die off in the cold, and then maybe life could go back to how it was. 

I didn't often think about the future, mainly because I wasn't sure if I would see it. Mainly because I wasn't sure I would be able to have a future where everything was as it once was. I didn't care about what was coming to me, I only cared about living at this very moment. Getting through just tomorrow, getting through just the next hour. I didn't have any thoughts about getting through a year, or a month at some points. I just wanted to get through right now, because right now I was alive, in the future, I might not be.

Barry came into the house and didn't speak to me, jumping into his bed and turning over. He pretended to sleep and I let him have his silence, as I locked the door and went to sleep myself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N hello everyone!  
> Welcome to my new Fanfic!  
> I don't have much fics on this site yet, but one thing you have to know about me is that I get ideas all the time and post then impulsively -  
> regardless this is my first post Apocalypse book and I am very happy to do some cool world building things and give you some bad ass zombie esc action!  
> I hope you all enjoy the ride! and leave comments about what you liked / what you think will happen next!
> 
> also, side note, yes Barry Marcez is me, I admit, I like me a good self insert, but don't worry it is not going to be an x reader story! or a x Gary Sue! (the tags are correct, I just gotta build some suspence first :)
> 
> see you soon! xoxo, Barry!


	2. Chapter 2

## Chapter 2

"Do you remember memes?" Barry asked as we walked down a quiet, desolate road on our way back to the supermarket to scope the place out. Although it wasn't something I wanted to do, there might have been good supplies there, it looked untouched besides the Drudgers, and they barely actually ate anything from stores and warehouses.

"Yeah I do, vaguely." I answered, Barry began to giggle under his breath.

"All I've been thinking this entire walk is knuckles going 'do you know da weh' and I can't stop laughing about it in my head!" Barry laughed louder this time. I did a bit of a one syllable laugh which turned out to be just breath coming from my nose with a slight sound. Barry took a deep breath after laughing and wiped a tear from his eye, continuing on the road.

"I really don't think we're going the right way." he added. I gestured over to a street sign that was scratched off a bit and only had half of the street name left on it, green metallic paint must have landed on the pavement underneath, only to be blown away in the warm summer air, never to be seen again. 

"We saw this sign yesterday and walked about 5 more minutes and we got to the store. We're going the right way." I explained. Barry agreed with me by gesturing down the road and shrugging. We continued walking down the street until the plaza came into our view. The wind blew into me, brushing some leafs up against my jeans. It was colder than yesterday, winter was coming fast. I hiked my backpack higher up on my shoulders, and jogged to catch up to Barry. 

"I was thinking we go into the grocery store beside the Zellers, Zellers has been shut down for a while now, I think this one just remained abandon." Barry explained, I nodded and pointed to the dollar store next door. 

"We can check there for stuff to if we have room or time.” I added, Barry agreed and we continued walking. I think a lot of the time, me and Barry both had the same plan in our minds, but we needed to just say it out loud to make sure the other agreed. Even though they would, I think it was just a mentality we needed. Or, we just needed to know that within this world, at least one person was going to be there to follow the other to the end of the universe. 

When we got up to the doors of the grocery store, the first thing I noticed was the broken front window. It was big enough for many people to fit in, so the chances of Drudgers lurking in the shadows of the store were higher. Drudgers preferred dark places, I had noticed this in the early days. Their brains were probably strained from the chemicals in the pills, and they may have been sensitive to light. Or maybe they just thought being in the dark was more humorous, either way, I was sure we would run into some of them in the dim store. Barry slowly crept over to the broken window and stepped inside, the glass crunching harshly under his shoes. I winced at the echoing sound. He stopped moving for a moment, and silence reigned. Once we determined no Drudgers had heard us, Barry continued inside. 

Once he was fully in and no more loud crackling glass sounds filled the air, I followed, taking one step at a time ensuring I wasn't making loud noises either. Once we both entered the store entirely, we walked over to the shelf area, scanning the metal for some supplies. There were a few cans of corn, and a can of green beans. I placed them inside my backpack and continued further into the store, going up and down the isles on the right while Barry went up and down them from the left. I found a few more cans, but a lot of them were either rusted to a point where we would get sick if we ate anything inside and the others were already opened and dumped everywhere. 

“Hey Ethan, come here for a second.” Barry called from the left, I placed the last good can into my bag and walked towards his voice. It was getting progressively darker as I walked over. I pulled out my flashlight and flicked it on, just so I could see where I was going. I was a little blind, and my glasses had broken a long time, so I needed to have at least some light to navigate through things. I spotted Barry standing in front of a counter, his flashlight in his hand, pointing at a glass cabinet that was smashed. 

“Look. All the Dopanium is gone.” he spoke, Dopanium being the antidepressant that started all of this. The tag with the price was on multiple levels of the shelf, but the counters and pills were all absent. I leaned on the counter and shook my head.

“I’m not surprised. The Drudgers need to have a stock of them you know? To turn other people.” I explained, Barry moved his flash light down the cabinet, finding the glass all on the ground, scattered and tinted with red. 

“Yeah but, the cabinet itself looks like it was full of these pills…” he moved the flashlight along the ground, following the shards of glass, “Why was this grocery store so over stocked with them to begin with?” Barry continued. I shrugged, following his light, looking along the ground. It was something I noticed in passing, that stores were heavily stocked with Dopanium for seemingly no reason. It was a drug that you didn’t need a prescription to get, but, there was no reason for a store to have more of it then a common cough syrup. People were depressed, but it seemed excessive. The red tints on the glass got darker and more plentiful as I followed the path with my light. A shadowy figure showed itself on the ground at the end of the trail, and Barry shined his light on it as well, making it come into full view.

A body. I didn’t know how long it had been here for, but the flies that called the area around it home were hinting at the fact it has been there for a while. Barry gagged a bit and then let out a deep breath, trying to calm down a bit. I didn’t really react to it as much as him. It was sad, and I felt pity for the person, I didn’t know how they got there, but it was most likely not on their own accord. The amount of old blood that pooled around them showed me enough to know this was a struggle that didn’t end well. I had seen things like this so much in this life however, that I was no longer surprised. 

“We need to keep going. This looks like it happened a while ago but, just in case whatever did this is around here still.” I explained, Barry nodded and me and him continued further into the store. We grabbed some more cans of food and some peanut butter - I couldn't have peanuts at all, but Barry could, so he figured he would take it for himself and eat it if necessary while I was out of the room - and other food that wouldn't expire within the next year and packed it away in our bags. We then got to the far back where more of the clothing and house items were. I went digging through some of the still standing displays and found a sweater with pink and blue sleeves that looked like it would fit me well, and I took it and slipped it on.

"Noice." Barry spoke as I examined it over my T-shirt. The clothes I had been wearing at this point were light weight and not going to help me get through the winter, so I needed to start preparing. The sweater was warm and comfy, so I decided I would take it. Barry found a black jacket with flowers that ran up and down the sleeves and slipped it off the hanger. He waved the jacket in my face with a huge smile and began to put it on quickly. I laughed at how much he liked the jacket as he showed it off to me, all runway style.

"Oh em gee. This is the new style of the apocalypse for sure. James Charles would be shook." He joked as he walked back and forth, one hand on his hip, the other swaying in the slightly stuffy air. I laughed again and so did he. I wanted more moments like this in my life, but they got more and more sparse as time went on. I felt that me and Barry could have had an even better connection if we didn’t spend 50% of our time just trying to wake up the next morning. It was when we had moments like these that I felt like maybe in the future, our lives could go back to how they were, but it was wasteful to think like this, and sadly, it was wasteful to play around like this as well. Me and Barry didn't dottle much more in the clothing isle after a few moments, and continued on our journey. Having found not much else from the store, we headed back to the broke window and stepped into daylight.

The coast was still clear for Drudgers, so we headed into the dollar store next door. The windows were fully intact in this one, but the door was left wide open. Me and Barry slipped inside, walking to the far end of the store and slowly making our way down the isles. This one was smaller than the grocery store, so it was much easier to stay together and navigate without wasting time. We got some bandages and other hygiene products from the one isle, a few bags of candy that remained unopened from another isle, and a pack of 3 lighters as the one we had was running out fast and rubbing 2 sticks together only seemed to work in movie to start a fire. As we were just about to leave, I noticed a cooler packed to the brim with water bottles waiting near the exit.

"Oh wow! Look at all that water!" Barry chimed, approaching the cooler door. I didn't move at first, because something felt… off… about the situation. The water cooler looked completely untouched, opposed go everything else in this store, and all the water bottles were stocked neatly beside one another. It might have very well been that no one had touched the water in the cooler, but this seemed unlikely. Unlikely enough to raise suspicion for me. 

“Barry wait a second,” I spoke just as he was going to reach for the cooler. He turned to me and shrugged. 

“What? We are always low on water, why would I pass up an opportunity like this?” he argued and went back to the cooler. I shushed him and continued to tell him to stop but he didn’t seem to want to listen to me.

“That exact reason! Why would a bunch of water be hanging out here like this?” I questioned, but it was too late. Barry already opened the door of the cooler and as soon as he did, a loud siren went off. Barry cursed and grabbed his shotgun, loading it and rushing towards me, looking all around, trying to find whoever set this trap. The loud sirens would soon attract anyone to us however, be it a trap setter or not, so we had to leave.

"Let's go, before we have a repeat of yesterday." I loaded my own gun as I spoke. I had my handgun today, leaving my rifle back at the camp as I was in the mindset that we would have an uneventful day, turns out I was wrong. Me and Barry started towards the exit, the tin cans rattling around in our bags were the only noise louder then the sirens going off. I could faintly hear yells and giggles, followed by the almost inaudible paps of feet against the ceramic flooring. I ushered Barry to keep up with me as I got to the door and slipped out. Once I got outside I began to move towards the road outside of the plaza, but when I turned to look over my shoulder, I noticed Barry wasn't behind me. I quickly stopped and spotted his floof of pink hair sticking out behind a dumpster and ran towards it. 

"What the fuck are you doing?!" I had to yell over the siren but I made sure it wasn't loud enough for anyone but Barry to hear. Barry knelt down more and continued looking.

"No one was there to pounce on us as soon as we triggered the trap." He informed me, I rolled my eyes and tugged at his new floral jacket. 

"Exactly, so we should take this time to get out of here." I pressed, but Barry just sat there. He was watching for something, but I didn't know what, and we weren't blending in while behind that dumpster. It was mostly Barry's hair, pink is all fun and games until you're trying to hide from hundreds of infected people. Barry continued watching the windows of the grocery store as if waiting for all the Drudgers to find us, but no one came. It was odd, I had heard something running and laughing inside, but they were coming towards the loud sirens. After a few minutes the sirens stopped, and the air was silent again.

"What the-" before Barry could finish, I saw a person running behind the windows of the store at full speed. I ducked down and pulled Barry along with me. He resisted at first but then just stayed hidden behind the dumpster. I heard people speaking, luckily what I lost in vision I seemed to gain in hearing.

"Well, someone set it off the door is open." A female voice sounded. Then I heard the squeaking of the cooler doors hinges. 

"Maybe it was one of the Pyschos that keep coming in here because someone doesn't lock the door properly." Another voice sounded, this time it was a Male, he had an accent.

"Uh seriously? We're doing this again!? The back door is broken that's hardly my fault!?" Another man's voice, coated with an accent as well, but it was a different one from the first man I heard. The two foreign sounding men began to argue about doors and who broke what, until another voice broke through them.

"Hey! Stop it! Really Felix? Not everything is Jack's fault." A third Male voice, this one was deeper than the rest, and more rough sounding. I heard him walk, and then stop abruptly.

"The door was his fault but this wasn't a Psycho who did this." He continued, one of the guys with an accent started to complain but the deep voiced man shushed him. I heard the cooler door open and close again.

"They might have fled. We need to keep an eye out. Felix, run a perimeter check." He commanded. The one accented male agreed, and I heard him begin walking. The footsteps were distant at first, but then they were progressively getting louder. I grabbed Barry and pulled him along with me, further into the corner of the dumpster, holding my hand over his mouth and mine so neither of us made a noise. _**Cha-chink.**_ It was the sound of a gun being loaded. Barry took a shaky breath and I tried to keep him quiet still. The footsteps were now right on the other side of the dumpster. I took my hand off of my mouth and slipped it down onto my gun, gripping it slowly and carefully as to not make a sound. 

A dirty sneaker peered beyond the coverage of the dumpster, and then another. Attached was loose fitting blue jeans, faded and ripped, the belt buckle loops being covered by a pastel pink hoodie, with a sad face in the middle, filled with stains of its own, and lastly at the top, a pale skinned face, chin coated in dark facial hair, and blue eyes looking off into the distance in front of him, and luckily it wasn't me and Barry. He had dirty blonde hair sticking out from a hat that matched his sweater. He stepped onto the concrete, pebbles crunching under his shoes in what felt like slow motion. Me and Barry sat, so still that it almost felt like I was leaving my body. At the rate my heart was running, I wouldn't be surprised if something left my body. Suddenly he turned around, facing opposite us as he did and then walked back to the grocery store without noticing us curled up. 

"No ones out front. I'll check the back." He called out, his voice further away than before. Once I heard his footsteps almost dissipate, I took a deep breath and let go of Barry who did the same. We kept quiet however, and crouched along the wall of the other store, the one with the dumpster, and proceeded to leave the plaza. We got to the road and stood up, hurrying towards the forest.

"Let's go home, now." Barry breathed, grabbing onto my arm and dragging me along. I nodded and then turned my head, looking behind us for a split second just to make sure we were home free. That's when I saw him. 

He had messy dark hair that hung from his head, matching the colour of his semi shaved facial hair. His skin was olive in shade and his build was broad. He wore a black hoodie, and camo patterned pants, along with dark shoes I couldn't quite see. Me and Barry weren't as far away from them as we thought. Me and this man made eye contact, and I knew he knew me and Barry were the ones who set off the alarm. He didn't attack us, no, he didn't even move. He just watched on as Barry tugged my arm and pulled me into the forest whilst I stared at him. Our eyes didn't disconnect until I was surrounded by trees and I couldn't focus on him any longer. I turned back and ran with Barry, into the direction of the road. We and eventually made it to our house without incident. 

When we got into the fenced area of our camp, I took a moment to catch my breath. Barry was pacing, saying something to himself which I couldn’t understand. I let him have this moment, and when it seemed like he was done I broke into his chanting. 

“He saw me.” I spoke, Barry gave me a confused look and stopped pacing.

“Who?”

“The one guy, he saw me.” I replied. Barry ran his hands through his hair and his face went from semi stressed, to complete panic mode.

“What do you mean?! How did he see you?! He walked right past us and-” 

“No, not that guy, another guy who was standing inside the store. When we were running away I looked back and we made eye contact. He definitely saw us.” I explained. Barry sighed loudly and crossed his arms, looking at the ground.

“What are we going to do? We don’t know these people or what they are capable of and now they know we’re out here.” He explained, I patted his shoulder and shook my head, attempting to comfort him. 

“Listen, just because they saw me doesn’t mean they know where we are. Chances of them finding us are next to zero, it’s a big forest.” I told him, he shook his head at me and then started towards the stairs, going up to our house. I followed behind him, calling his name but he ignored me. He went inside and started packing his things away in a duffle bag. 

“Barry, what are you doing?” I asked, standing behind him as he rushed to put as much as he could in the bag.

“Barry!” I called out louder, this time he stopped and turned to me. 

“We need to leave. If those people find us then-” 

“Then what? Like you said, we don’t know them. We’re just going to get up and leave at the first sign of confrontation? Why? They don’t know us either.” I spoke, Barry tossed a shirt into the bag and then shut it with force, turning to me with his eyebrows narrowed.

“Yeah well I do know us Ethan, and I know that we aren’t going to stand a chance against 4 or more people who took over a grocery store that was probably full of Drudgers. They don’t seem like friends, they seem like enemies, and I don’t know about you but I don’t want to sit around and wait for them to come knocking on our door, guns blazing.” Barry almost shouted the words. I didn’t say anything after that. He soon went back to packing away his things into the bag. He stopped for a moment when he got to the small shirt he always held on to. He gripped it tightly, and then tossed it into the bag. He then zipped up the bag and sat down beside it on his mattress, his head in his hands, hunched over.

“Where would we go Barry? Why would we give up the things we have right now just because some people may or may not pose a threat to us?” I asked, Barry didn’t say anything, just continued to stare into the floor as if his answer would appear from there. 

“Barry,” I was bugging him, but I didn’t care, I wanted to know his plan because clearly he was thinking of something I couldn’t come up with.

“We could go to Canada.” he finally spoke, I gave him a confused look.

“Canada? What’s in Canada?” I asked, he mumbled something that I couldn’t hear, so I asked him to repeat himself. 

“I used to live there. I heard there was a safe haven there.” he still mumbled the words, and I knew why. 

“There are no safe havens.” I stated, very sternly. Barry rolled his eyes at me and signed, flicking the zipper on his bag.

“Well, what do you suggest?” he asked. I had to bite my tongue here because what I was going to suggest was that he shut his mouth, unpack his bag and stop whining, but I knew I would regret saying this immediately. So I took a breath instead and found a compromisable solution.

"Why not L.A? Winter is on its way, and it's warm there, we won't have to worry about snow." I informed him, he nodded and then sighed, laying back on the bed. It was silent again, all I heard was the wind blowing and my heart beating. 

"We wouldn't leave now. Let's give it a few days. We'll see if they even find us and if nothing is different we might as well stay for as long as we can. We built a sustainable living space here, and they might have been camping out there for as long as we have been here, we don't know." I spoke, trying to reason with the bubblegum haired stress ball wallowing on his bed. He nodded but with little to no actual enthusiasm. He turned over and just laid there. I thought about trying to have a heart to heart talk with him, but, that wasn't the type of relationship we had. As much as I wanted to be able to open up to him, to be there to comfort him, to speak to him on a different level, I think we both knew we were only together like this because we both helped the other survive. So instead I sighed as well, took my bag, and headed out to take a walk and have a heart to heart talk with myself.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N I promise these notes wont be every chapter things but - I just wanted to say thank you all so much for the quick and continued love and support this book is already getting! Make sure to comment about your favourite parts! And thanks for all the Kudos' ! I really apperciate them you have no idea!


	3. Chapter 3

## Chapter 3

I was alone. This wasn't something new, but it did feel a bit strange. Barry had been sitting in bed for the past 24 hours, doing nothing but breathing and staring at the floor. He was probably eating while I was out but I didn't have any proof of it so I couldn't say if he was or not. He had these moments where he would be sad, probably left with his thoughts for too long and then spiraled into some type of depression and want to go back to the way the world was before this Dopanium shit hit the fan. However, they were just moments, this time it felt like he was out for an eternity. I didn't really know why, but I thought it might have had something to do with the group of people we saw. He was scared of them. Scared that we almost got kidnapped, or worse by the one who came close to us. Scared that they could overpower us at any time. Scared that his life would end in the hands of these 4 other survivors just because we weren't with them. I felt the same way too, but somehow I managed to move on from it. This feeling of dread that always stuck around in the back of your head in situations like this was something I was accustomed to, and didn't let bother me because I knew it was just a feeling, and it couldn't do anything to me that would stop me from functioning in life. Sadly, not everyone was like that though. 

I never used to be like this. I was very much full of joy, laughter, sorrow, anger, carefreeness, all types of emotions before all of this happened, but that didn't matter anymore. I adapted to survive, and survive I shall, for as long as I can. Laying in bed all day worrying about what could happen would not get me anywhere, let alone to the next morning, so I couldn't follow I'm Barry's footsteps in that sense. 

The wind was noticeably colder today, it was almost harsh in nature, blowing my sweater strings into my face and leaves into my feet. We needed to figure this out, winter would be here and we would freeze to death in our house as it was insulated well enough to keep us warm for those long months. We either needed to gather supplies to make our house heated, or we needed to pack up and go somewhere where winter was either nonexistent or very minimal. I would bring it up to Barry when I got back, but for now I needed to focus on what I was currently doing. 

Gun in hand, hood over my head, I approached the plaza with the Zellers, Grocery store and dollar store.. Why was I here again? It was to give myself a piece of mind. I wanted to know who me and Barry were really up against - if it was 4 people or more, if they had tons of weapons, if they had Drudgers, tons of supplies, what ever - I wanted to know if we could stand a chance. 

So, I got up to the door of the dollar store and peered inside the glass. I out my hand on the handle and pulled but it was locked. I groaned at the limitation, remember the group members discussing locking the door yesterday. I took my hand off and kept looking inside to see if there was another way in. I eventually found a door on the far side of the store, which seemed to lead to the neighboring grocery store. I looked at it more and followed it with my eyes, moving over to the grocery store window and finding the other side of the door there. It seemed so though all of these buildings were connected by staff only entrances, but since there was no staff I didn't think anyone would get mad if I used them. I climbed over to the section of the grocery store window that was broken and slowly walked in. Everything looked as it did yesterday, virtually untouched. It was strange, but I realized that these people were probably not living in the store with the broken windows, and if my hypothesis about all these stores being connected by staff only doors was true then they could be anywhere.

This was a scary fact. If they could be in any of these stores that meant that I could walk into any of them at any point. I wanted to test my theory, so I found the door I had seen from the window and opened it. With a small click and a little push, it opened, I walked inside and was greeted with none other then the dollar store shelves. So I was right, it was all connected. I closed this door softly as to not make much noise. I walked through the dollar store looking for any sign of non Drudgers. After about 20 minutes of looking, I found nothing. I grunted, feeling a bit deafeated. I walked to the right left side of the store and found another staff only door. I opened it and sure enough it lead me to the laundromat next door. The walls were lined with washers and dryers, coins scattered the floor and ripped clothing covered the shelves, laundry soap still dripping from some of the near empty containers. I doubted that the group lived here, it was too run down and left to decay for anyone to call it home, even in this world.

I walked through the building to the other side, where another door stood. It said 'staff only, Zellers' on it. That must have been it, they must have been in the Zellers. The store chain closed down a while ago, it would make sense for them to hide out there as not many people would check it. Even me and Barry didn't go in there when we first saw this place or even the second time. My thoughts were soon confirmed when I turned the doorknob and was stopped half way by the lock. I shook the door and it didn't budge. They must have been held up in there. I stepped back and headed for the dollar store door, to exit the building. I headed towards the Zellers, moving around to the back trying to find an entrance. I was determined to scope out the enemy. 

The Zellers was big, and still in good condition, the red paint on the siding and the white paint on the foundation were chipping but besides that it seemed untouched. As I got closer to the back of the store, I noticed a blood stain on the siding, it looked like someone was pushed into it with great force, and most likely didn’t live to tell the tale. I hoped it was a Drudger and not a survivor, but there was no way of me knowing this indefinitely. I found what seemed to be the loading dock for the Zellers in the back. I walked down a sloped road and approached the red metal doors. I ran my hand over the cold surface, feeling the paint rub off on my finger tips. There was a lock on the door, but it was open and dangling on the handles.

I slipped the lock off and pushed the door gently, and it began to open. The door creaked, so I pushed against it softer, trying to make sure I didn’t alert anyone who might have been inside. Soon I managed to open the door enough for me to step in, and gently shut it behind me. I was brought into an almost pitch black room, the only light source was coming from about 30 meters away. It was an open door, and inside was the rest of the Zellers. I assumed I was in some sort of loading area, where trucks used to come and drop off inventory. I timidly made my way over to the door, trying to keep light on my feet in order to not make noise. As I approached the door, I heard voices, the same ones from yesterday. 

"Do you think Mark will come back with something new this time?" Voice one said, I only vaguely remember the two names from yesterday that were appointed to the two make voices that were accented. Jake and Felin? I knew I was wrong but I thought I had the just of the names. Mark was a new name, and I knew there was at least one girl.

"Honestly I don't think we should be complaining about what food he gets for us and be thankful he is getting us food," voice two explained, and then there was a pause, "but yeah I'm getting really sick of canned soup. I want like, pizza or something yeah know?" They both laughed. I would kill for pizza at this point, it had been so long since I had one. Imagining the gooey cheese made my stomach growl, I hoped it wasn't loud. It would be so annoying if the thing that gave me away was the growing of my stomach as I fond over a pizza. 

"Where's Amy?" Voice two asked, vice one let out a grunt and then replied.

"Hmm, I don't know. I think she might be sleeping over in the bedding isle, but she could be somewhere else." Voice one replied. It sounded like they were both near the door sitting around a fire, I kept hearing random crackling and seeing the light shift around from shadows to more light, it wasn't a drastic change as a lot of daylight was coming in and neutralizing the fires illumination. I leaned forward and tried to see into the door, but I didn’t want to lean too much in case the two were facing the doorway and saw me. The more I leaned the more I saw of the inside of the Zellers, it was big and the store shelves were still up, there were a lot of supplies in one corner and some beds and blankets pushed together in another. I could almost see the two sitting on the ground, if I just leaned a bit more-

The loading dock door I had used to break in swung open with a loud bang! Which made me jump what seemed like 40 meters in the air. I launched myself towards the far wall of the area I was in, trying to crouch in the dark parts of the room, trying desperately not to get caught. My heart began racing as I looked on and my eyes landed on a shadow figure, that grew more visible as it walked towards the door I was attempting to look into. When I could see more features of them, I came to the conclusion it was the same person I had made eye contact with yesterday as me and Barry were fleeing. 

“You idiots left the lock off the door again!” his voice boomed as he stormed into the main area of the store where the rest of his group were. They all began to defend themselves against who was the one who left the lock off the door and the one who had just came in shushed them both.

“Well it was one of you.” he growled, then one of the other voices chimed in. 

“You were the one who left out that door Mark, so it was probably you.” one of the other voices said. I was trying to match the voices to the names I was hearing, Mark was the deeper male voice that sounded American. Mark was also the one who kept growling as if he was a wolf trying to scare his omega’s into behaving. I doubted that the other two really listened to his commands though.

“What if something got in? It’s the damn dollar store door incident all over again!” Mark shouted, the other two began to argue with him and he argued back and during all of this commotion, I thought it was the perfect time to leave. I began to run back over to the door I entered from, trying to make sure my shoes didn’t echo against the cement too much, this caused me to sacrifice my speed a bit. I kept moving towards the door, and soon I noticed the arguing voices go dead silent. I turned my head around to see what had happened and I stepped, then my life flashed before my eyes as I tripped over a raised ledge and went tumbling to the ground. BOOM. 

“What was that?!” one voice called. My heart began to pound harder then I think it had in a long time. These weren’t just next to mindless Drudgers I could pick off with my handgun, no, there were other survivors, mean, powerful survivors at that. I stumbled to my feet and made an attempt to run to the door but within a second someone was grabbing me by the hood of my sweater, yanking back so hard I coughed and gasped for breath. I was dragged into the light of the Zellers and picked up by the hood, my feet lifting from the ground, my arms grabbing at the collar of my hoodie, trying to pull at it so I could breath. I felt as though my heart was going to jump out of my chest, and my lungs out my mouth. 

The person holding me was the one I had seen when we were leaving yesterday, the one with the keep voice. Raven black hair, dark brown eyes, stubble beard, and olive skin. His eyes fixated on me, baring into my face, small strands of his hair crossed paths with them, but didn't interrupt his gaze. Mark, that's what his name was.

"What are you doing here? Who are you?" He asked in a deep, but calm voice. For some reason the fact that his tone was so calm made me feel even more in danger. I tried go answer him but all that came out of my mouth was short breaths and gasps. He placed me back on the ground, still groping my hood, but allowing me to breath. 

"Let's try that again, what are you doing here? Who are you?" He repeated. Now that I caught my breath, I started to try and come up with a plan as fast ask I could. I couldn't think of anything, so I needed to buy time. I could tell Mark was not having any of my silence as his grip tightened on my hood and he pulled on it. I didn't want to give him any information if I didn't have too, so I choose to stall as long as I could until I could think of a plan. 

"I don't have to answer you" I replied, getting a wave of confidence that I felt I shouldn’t have invoked. Mark raised an eyebrow at me and a smirk appeared on his face.

“Oh really?” he spoke, taking his free hand and grabbing a hand gun, bringing it up to my head and loading the clip. The sound it made cause chills to run through my entire body and I immediately regretted acting the way I did. However, a small voice in my head told me that I couldn’t give in too quickly, or show too much fear, as if I did this Mark and the rest of his group would not take me seriously.

“Mark! Don’t do that!” one of the other guys shouted, I couldn’t turn to see his reaction, but he sounded panicked. 

“Are you going to answer my questions now?” Mark asked again, as much as the little voice in my head was saying no, I analyzed the situation and came to the conclusion that the only way I was going to make it out of here alive would be to cooperate with him. I nodded and he put the gun down, still holding me tight from my hoodie to keep me in place.

“My name is Ethan. Me and my friend came across this place the other day and didn’t know anyone was living here. I came back after yesterday when we saw you guys, just to figure out what we were up against.” I explained, Mark laughed slightly and examined me.

“Really? Is that so? So, you’re the two I saw running away yesterday then, huh?” he asked, I nodded slowly. 

“What did you say your name was again?” he asked.

“Ethan.” I repeated. He scoffed at me, and then shook his head, connecting his eyes with mine.

“Ok Eth, let me make one thing apparent. I’m not sure what you're really planning here but it isn’t going to work. You and your dumb friend are not going to infultrate us, or take us down, or what ever it is you wanted to gain from coming in here, snooping around, and attempting to take our things. If anything, we are going to take everything from you, and see to it that you don't make it through the night." He said it all in an extremely threatening tone. I didn't know why he only said the first syllable of my name, but I took it as disrespectful. He kept staring me down, his gaze so harsh I was beginning to sweat, but I was covered in chills at the same time.

"Relax, we didn't even know anyone was stationed here when we found this plaza. We got chased out of here by Drudgers the other day, we thought it was overthrown." I explained trying to take a more defensive approach now that I knew my sassy one wasn't going to work. Mark gave me a very confused look.

"Drudgers?" He questioned.

"Umm.. Yeah, you know those things that try and shove Dopanium down our throats or kill us for the hell of it - the things terrorizing the world, that started all of this?" I asked it as if he were stupid but this was clearly a bad choice as he caught onto my tone and lifted me off the floor again, holding me closer to his face.

"Listen to me Eth, you are going to regret talking to me in that tone very quickly if you continue." He hissed, dropping me fast, causing my legs to hit the ground harshly and give out as I fell over to my knees.

"You have 1 hour until we come and find your camp. In that time I expect you and whoever you're with to be gone. If we go to your camp and find you well, it's all over then…" Mark warned. I climbed to my feet and looked at him, then behind me at the two other men. The one that had almost caught me and Barry yesterday was there, and the other had a dark brown beard and hair in a small bun that matched. I looked back at Mark and he shooed me away. 

"You better hurry up Eth, tick tock." And with that, I began to walk. I had to use every ounce of willpower in me to not go running out the door, I didn't want to show Mark how utterly terrified I was because I wanted to give the illusion I was stronger than him, but as soon as I stepped out the big metal doors to the outside loading dock, I bolted. Running almost non stop all the way back to our camp, needing to get Barry and get the fuck out of dodge. My whole body was burning, and my mind was telling me to stop running for a minute, but I didn't I kept going, needing to get to Barry, needing to get us out of here, as fast as I could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N out of curiosity, does anyone know what Zellers is or am I just that old? Ahahha


	4. Chapter 4

##  Chapter 4 

I think I was a worrier before all of this happened. I didn't quite remember but I was pretty sure I was. Worrying about this and that, what might happen what might not. That characteristic seemed to somehow slip its way into my everyday life now. Sometimes I would just have an overwhelming wave of worries wash over me, but often times I would just get over it and move on, acting like that wasn't a remnant from my past personality. 

Right now, that feeling was way too strong to ignore. Mark was threatening, and even though I felt that me and Barry would be able to over power them with planning and tactics, we needed more time than an hour. We were outnumbered for starters, and Mark was stronger than me, I could tell just from our small encounter. Not to say I couldn’t beat him in a fight if put in the situation, but I would need to know more of my surroundings and situation, and right now all I knew was me and Barry were in trouble, and our lives were at risk. 

I saw our house in the distance, and I ran faster, trying to make my lungs keep up with my legs. I got to the fence door, unlocked the padlock with the key and bolted up the stairs, crashing through the door and frantically looking for Barry. I found him still lying on his side in his bed, just as he was before I left. I went over to him and shook his arms. 

“Barry! Get up!” I shouted, he grunted and shooed me away.

“Stop Ethan, I’m sleeping.” Barry said, I continued to shake him and yelled louder for him to get up. He opened his eyes and frowned at him, he went to go and say something snarky but when he noticed the expression on my face, he began to sit up.

“What did you do?” He asked, I began to go off on how I went to scope out the plaza and ended up getting caught by the group, but I was in such a panic that I couldn’t tell if I was making much sense. Barry placed his hands on my shoulders and I stopped mid sentence, trying to recollect. In this world I put on a badass mask and try to make it seem like things didn't bother me. Sometimes masks fall off, and all I have to do it calm down, pick it up off the ground and place it back on. I took some breaths, and went back to thinking logically.

"The group we saw yesterday, I saw them today. I went to scope them out and accidentally got caught. The one guy, his name is Mark, he said we have an hour before he shows up and either blows the place away or takes it from us. Either way we need to leave or we die." I spoke. Barry looked at me as if I was lying, but he couldn't tell I wasn't. I expected him to get mad, even if it was just for a little bit, but he didn't. He stood up and got together her bag again as he was doing yesterday. 

"Ok. Let's get out of here. We can think of a plan later." He said. I was forever grateful for this man and the way he always trusted me. He didn't get permanently mad at me, for anything, and I would never tell him but that small gesture meant the world to me. Barry began packing the rest of his things and I grabbed a few bags and began packing away our guns first, and then my other supplies. We agreed not to take all the food as we would find some on the road, and we needed space in our bags for weapons and clothing. Halfway through packing up my things, I heard a bump from behind me. 

“You’re so fucking gullible.” A voice spoke, I spun around to see who it was but I already knew just by hearing the tone. Standing behind me in the doorway of me and Barry’s house was Mark, arms crossed, with the two other guys in his group - I didn't pick up their names well enough to identify them - behind him, holding guns. I cursed under my breath. 

Of course they wouldn’t wait an hour, why would I have trusted that statement? I should have known they would follow me here. It was the perfect plan, but I was too much in a blind panic to pay attention to my surrounds, how could I let my guard down like this and be so careless? It wasn't like me. As soon as Barry faced the three men, he held out his hand gun and cocked it, ready to fire. The two men behind Mark held out their shotgun and rifle, and Mark laughed at Barry's small weapon.

"Barry, just don't." I told him, putting my hand in front of him, trying to get him to stay calm. I knew how quickly this could turn into a bloodbath, the main goal was to not start shooting, and see if maybe we could talk this through. 

"Yeah, listen to your boyfriend." Mark mocked, Barry opened his mouth to protest the statement but I just shook my head at him, trying to plead for him not to start a fight, not right now. Mark chuckled once again.

"Now Eth, stop wasting your time and packing all your stuff away. We're keeping it all." he shook his head. I was holding back the urge to attack him, or let Barry start shooting. I had to think this through, but I was too panicked to really process anything properly. I didn’t answer him and tried to calm down. 

“Jack, go check the place out, we don’t need any surprises.” Mark asked the guy with the darker hair. He walked past me and Barry and began going through our things. He laughed a few times, and then turned back to face everyone else, raising his hands.

“This place is tiny,” he joked, he then looked into Barry’s bag and spotted a pink piece of clothing. The small pink shirt that Barry always cried into. Jack held it up and dangled it in front of everyone.

“What the hell? These two are weirdos." He teased. What happened next was almost a blur, Barry snapped at the fact that Jack was touching that pink shirt of his and he rushed to him, ripping the shirt out of his hands and kicking him hard in the shin. As this was happening, the other guy with the lighter hair rushed towards Barry, his gun being loaded. I quickly ran at him, jumping into his side, taking him down to the ground causing him to shoot a bullet and miss, getting it into our wall. I struggled with him for his gun, eventually managing to climb to my feet and stomp on his hand, making him wince and loosen his grip so I could confiscate his gun from him, pointing it back towards him, ready to shoot if he were to do anything. I then turned to face Barry who had Jack's gun in hand, pointing his hand gun against Jack's forehead, shaking his head at him and breathing heavily.

"You don't fucking touch this, you hear me? I don't give a fuck who you are you don't fucking touch this." Barry growled into Jack's face. Jack just looked up at him and didn't say a word. I could tell he was trying to find a way out of his predicament, but these two had vastly underestimated Barry and I. Suddenly, the sound of slow applause erupted from behind us. 

"Bravo Eth and friend, looks like you two aren't as weak and helpless as I thought you were." Mark said from the doorway as he clapped. Me and Barry both turned to face him, but I made sure I kept my attention still mainly on the guy I was pointing this gun at. Mark then took something out of his pocket, holding it out for everyone to see. It was a God damn grenade. I stepped back, and Barry quickly moved to try and keep Mark in his sight as well. Mark laughed and moved the explosive back and forth in his hand.

“Funny how quickly the tables turn when you’re the most powerful guy in the room…” Mark stated, and again no one moved or said anything. It was as if we were trying to disappear in the moment, and hopefully not get blown up by the psycho in the doorway. Mark just laughed again as if he found the situation amusing, I wondered for a moment if he was a Drudger, but I had to begrudgingly admit he seemed too smart to be one. 

“Ok, so now that I have your attention, this is exactly what we're going to do. You two are going to come with us, because I like your fight. I’m not going to like it if it continues to not be on my side however.” Mark explained. I took a shaky breath, partly because I was scared but more so because I was mad. Mark knew how to control a room, and he knew exactly what to do to back us into a corner where we comply to whatever it was he was asking. I didn’t know the guy too well but I could tell he liked being in control, and this grande he was threatening to set off was a way he could be in control. No one was going to argue with the guy who was holding an explosive. It felt like he had used this ultimatum before, the way he was speaking, as if he already knew what was going to happen was giving me this impression.

Regardless of what I thought in this moment, I had to think about what me and Barry were going to do to get out of here. I analyzed the situation for as long as I could, and soon came to the conclusion that there was only one way we were going to get out of here in one piece. To go with whatever it was he was asking, even if it meant going with him as he said. 

“Ok, we don’t need to go that route Mark, that’s your name right?” I asked, trying to get my calm and collective voice on. Mark crossed his arms and shifting his body to the other side.

“Yeah, that’s my name, but I’d rather you call me Daddy Eth.” he laughed, it was getting harder and harder for me to try and be nice to this guy. I waited until he stopped laughing and continued. 

“What is it you want from us? Supplies? Our house? What exactly?” I asked, Mark scratched the bottom of his chin and then shrugged.

“I’m not sure. At first, I wanted to steal all of your stuff, but now, after seeing you bring my friends down within a matter of seconds, I think I’d rather you come along with us. You could be good additions to our group.” Mark explained, Barry went to go protest right away but he stopped when Mark threatened to pull the pin on the grenade.

“Uh-huh, tread lightly bubblegum boy, you have no rights in this world.” he growled, I gave Barry a look, shaking my head slowly to inform him not to act to rash. He stood down and I turned back to Mark, trying to analyze more outcomes of this situation. There was one really one where me and Barry made it out alive, and sadly that one ended with us going with him. I didn't want to admit it, and I wouldn't out loud, but Mark had won this fight. 

"What would we do if we came with you?" I asked, Mark shrugged and then walked closer to me. 

"Well, we are planning on moving up north, there is said to be less Psychos there, and possibly even communities. So, you would come with us, and we would probably use you for bitch work on our journey," Mark laughed again "If I'm being completely honest." His laugh was even more snarky then his tone. It was a tough decision really. Me and Barry could just get killed right now, or we could go with them and possibly get killed having to deal with Drudgers just because Mark didn't want to go scavenging himself and send me and Barry just because. It was really down to if I thought I could take chances with a grenade or tasks Mark was too lazy to do himself.

"Fine. We'll come along." I chose the non-grenade route. Mark shot me a smile, but it had way more evil embedded behind it than Satan himself. Mark put the grenade away, peering at both me and Barry and clapping his hands together.

"Ok! Sounds like a plan you two! Now, help us pack all this stuff up and bring it back to our camp, comprendre?" Mark had a really snarky voice and he didn't try and make it less snarky at any point. It's like he was trying to be a dick, just to make it seem like he was tough. I didn't like it. I didn't like any of this, he shouldn't have burst in here and done this. With the small amount of sane people left in this world, we shouldn't be threatening to kill each other. 

Me and Barry continued to pack our bags, but we were forced to take all the guns out, leaving them for Jack and Felix to take. Jack glared at me and Barry as he collected the guns, my eyes were drawn to a cut on his lip made from one of us. He seemed to growl at us, the somewhat friendly vibe I had gotten from him when I was spying on him and Felix was completely gone. It just went to show how much people change when they were thrown into different situations, this one being a situation controlled by a narcissistic dick who threatened people with grenades. 

To say I was mad was a huge understatement. I knew now me and Barry could have taken them on and won if it wasn't for that stupid explosive Mark had. When we collected as many supplies as we could carry, Mark ushered us out of the door. He lead us outside of our gate, which was now broken undoubting because of him and his goons. We began our trek back to the plaza where this whole mess had started. 

I didn't know what was going to happen next, but I knew in order to survive, I had to cooperate with Mark and anyone else he was with. I the past, everyone I had run into who wasn't a Drudger was all for teaming up, as bigger groups yielded better chances of making it through the next day, but we all worked together. It was none of this held hostage bullshit that was happening now. I thought a big portion of the reason I didn't know what to do was because I had yet to run into this situation before, and the unknowingness scared me. It scared me so much, and I hadn't been scared like this in a while. So, I succumb to the bullshit and followed orders, but I knew as soon as I saw an opening to get myself and Barry out of here, I would jump for it.

When we got back to the plaza, a girl was waiting by the front door, opening it when we came into her view. She had shoulder length hair, half of it was brown and the bottom half was blonde, as if it was bleached long ago and had grown in. She let us all in, closing the door behind her and walking with us through to the Zellers doors. 

"So, these are the two who were trying to steal from us? Pretty pathetic looking if you ask me," she said it in a voice that sounded very nice, a huge contrast from the content of her sentence. Mark shrugged and continued leading us further into the Zellers.

"You'd be surprised Amy, they nearly shot Jack and Felix, that's why they are here. I am impressed by their potential," Mark explained to the girl, Amy. "You know how much I had wasted potential, that shit crushes your soul." Mark continued, Amy nodded as if completely agreeing with everything this lunatic had to say. I kept my mouth shut the entire time, as I didn't want to say something that would expedite my death. I turned to Barry and could see he was trying with all of his will power not to make a sound. Barry always had a come back or remark of some sort, it was what made him who he was, however, at times like this, he had to learn how to just shut up which always proved difficult. Every step we took, Barry became more and more impatient, he was almost like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode in a rage of fists and arguments as soon as he had the chance. 

We finally stopped walking and Mark told us to put our things down. We were in an isle of the Zellers, one where all of the display beds in the store were pushed together and various blankets were stacked all around. I assumed this was where they slept. 

"Well, as much as I love talking to you two, I think it's time to hit the hay, for you at least. The grown ups have some things to discuss." Mark said, basically shoving me into the linen. I glared at him, but he didn't even pay attention, just walked away, his back turned to me.

"And one more thing," he began, still refusing to face me or Barry as he spoke, "If either of you try anything, your dead. Memento Mori." He growled. As he walked off and disappeared into the further end of the store, silence reigned between us. The only thing playing over in my head was the last thing he spoke before he shuffled off.

_Memento Mori._

_Remember, you will die._


	5. Chapter 5

## Chapter 5

I didn't sleep. How could I where I was right now. I couldn't imagine anyone being sound asleep here. Especially with them talking. 

I couldn't really make out what they were saying from where I was located, banished to the pile of mattresses with Barry, threatened to be killed if we moved. I hated this, I hated every part of it. We had only been here for about 15 minutes and I had already went over 100's of escape scenarios in my mind. Sadly, in most of them we die right away. In the ones where we don't, we die shortly after. The only idea I had to survive right at this time was to just do what we were told to do, stay where we were supposed to stay, and just look for an opening. 

I was like Alice, however. I gave myself good advice, but very seldom did I follow it. That explained all the trouble I got into.

"What are you doing?!" Barry whisper yelled to me as I began to stand up. I shushed him.

"I'm going to listen in, I'll be right back. If anything happens run away." I told him, Barry went to protest but I just kept moving. Barry was my closest friend in this world, I'd rather me than him. I crept slowly towards the voice, Mark and the others were in another part of the store. Luckily, most of the isles were still standing, so it was easy for me to hide behind shelves. I continued my walk to hear the voices better, making sure not to make any noise with my footsteps that would get me caught. Eventually, I found a spot that worked.

I was hidden behind an empty shelf, but it sounded like Mark and them were only a few shelves away, I was able to hear everything they were talking about if I was quiet enough.

"I don't think we should even bring them with us up north." This was Felix's voice. I heard Jack agree with him.

"Listen, I know that they seem shady, but I'd rather have my eyes on them then let them wander around near us, knowing where we are going. This way, they won't try anything, they seem a lot more capable than we thought." Mark reputed. His tone almost implied he was trying to defend me and Barry, but I knew better than to trust anything he was saying. From what it sounded like, he was just keeping his enemies close, he was worried that we would fight back.

"Why don't we just kill em? I know everyone is thinking that." This was the girl's voice, Amy, she said the sentence in a way that was almost sweet. She had a very soft voice that radiated cheerfulness, it was very out of place in this conversation, much more out of place the longer I repeated what she had said in my mind.

"Were not just going to kill them, that would be pointless. I think we should give them a fair shot to help us in our enderverse." Mark continued, defending us again. I guess as much as I despised Mark for doing this, I had to give him some credit as if he wasn't here me and Barry would have been killed by Amy, Jack and Felix a long time ago, maybe even before we accidently broke into their base. 

"I don't know if this is going to be a good thing, or a bad thing." Amy replied. Mark sighed at her response. 

"It doesn't matter if it's going to end up being good or bad, we need extra people. There is power in numbers and since Marzia is gone-" 

"Marzia isn't gone! She's coming back. That's why we are still here! Because she's coming back!" Felix shouted, cutting Mark off. I couldn't see his facial expression from where I was listening but I could tell he was fuming by Mark's comment. I had decent deduction skills, so if I had to guess I would say this Marzia girl was someone Felix deeply cared about who went off somewhere and hasn't returned. 

"...With Marzia away for the meantime," Mark rephrased, "we need more help around here. Gathering supplies, being defense if any Psychos come by, helping us get stuff together for our trip up north." Mark explained. Felix still seemed to have a problem with the rephrased sentence as he shouted again.

"We aren't leaving here until Marzia comes back!" He roared. Mark reacted fast to this statement. 

"Felix I'm not doing this right now! Marzia is in the middle of God knows where and winter is approaching us. If we don't leave soon-" I heard commotion and rustling, then Felix again. 

"Fuck you dude. We're not leaving without her. You just invited two complete strangers to our group because, I don't know you wanted eye candy or whatever but were going to take off without one of the people who has been with us since day fucking one?! Are you serious?!" Felix shouted. Silence reigned. 

"I said I'm not doing this right now." Mark repeated. I then heard shuffling, Mark was abruptly leaving. Shit. I began to head back to the mattress area as fast as I could but also as quiet as I could because if Mark knew I had left or caught me right now, I'd be done for. Luckily the room was dimly lit, the only source of light was coming from where Mark and everyone else were having their conversation. I trailed back to the linen isle, avoiding any debris that might have been on the floor in front of me. I was ahead of Mark, because his footsteps were sounding from behind but he was also going in the same direction. If I slowed down for even a second, or made a single noise, that would be it.

I saw Barry in my vision as I moved quicker. Barry was staring right at me, panic washing over his facial expression. I tried to go faster, but I knew that rushing back would cause me to make more noise, noise that in turn would get me caught. Mark seemed far enough away from me that I could get back with a few seconds to spare. I managed to sneak around the linen isle, behind some shelves and crawl to my spot on the mattress beside Barry, virtually undetected. My breathing was fast, that was all that could have outed me, but I could easily cover that up. 

Sure enough, Mark turned on the small lamp near us only moments later, peering back and forth at me and Barry.

"Why are you two still awake?" Mark asked, disappointment lacing his tone.

"You think it's easy to sleep after being kidnapped by strangers in this day and age?!" Barry snapped back, trying to interject so I didn't have to speak with my breathless voice. I would speak as soon as my breathing returned to normal.

"We didn't kidnap you, we took you in. There's a difference." Mark replied, his voice stern. 

"Well it really feels like you did kidnap us." Barry reputed. Mark grit his teeth and took a deep breath before adding more to the conversation, his patience being tested.

"We have a long day tomorrow so I suggest you both get to sleep right away. Neither of you will be on watch today because none of us trust you yet so you can both get a full night's sleep. I wouldn't waste that," Mark threatened. He turned to walk away but stopped, doing a 45 degree turn so that me and Barry were just in his peripheral vision. 

"And I really wouldn't waste it spying on us." He growled before walking away. I slumped in my spot on the mattress. I should have known he had caught me, how could I have been so stupid? Although, it was strange that he didn't kill me like he said he would when he first sent me and Barry to bed. Although it was strange that he didn't kill me like he said he would when he first sent me and Barry to bed.

The morning came all too slowly, I spent the night drifting in and out of sleep. When the sun peered into the windows of the store, I felt my body ache. I've had sleepless nights before, but not in a while. Surprisingly, this one shocked my system enough for me to actually feel sore because of it. When I turned to Barry and saw him staring at me as well, I knew this feeling was mutual. The rest of the group were sound asleep, all but Jack who had the last shift of night watch. He was sitting a good distance away from everyone else on a chair, armed with an M16, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did, he just missed out on sleep.

A yawn startled my thoughts, causing me to turn around and peer into the sea of mattresses. It was Mark, he stretched as he woke up, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. As soon as he opened them, they connected with mine. This piercing brown I couldn't escape from but needed to.

“Sleep well Eth?” Mark asked me in a cocky voice. I didn't give him the satisfaction of an answer, Barry was not wiser.

“You're an asshole.” He groaned. Mark just laughed at the remake, which was why I didn't give him one. He climbed over Felix, trying not to wake him up. Amy was a few mattresses away from everyone else, blanket still over her head, snoring softly away.

“Jack, wake up Felix to do the watching while you get some sleep.” Mark instructed, Jack turned and nodded, getting off the chair and leaving the gun on the floor beside it.

“Where are you going?” He asked once he met Mark half way. Mark grinned and eyed me and Barry.

“I'm taking the boys for a trip!” He said it in an excited, 'we're going to Disneyland' voice, but we were definitely not going to Disneyland, “C'mon along boys! Rise and shine!” Mark clapped his hands as he spoke now, as if calling a dog over. It was infuriating, however I didn't feel like dying and I still didn't trust him so I went along with it for now. I stood up, looking down at Barry who had his arms crossed, staring at Mark as if he was imagining how to kill him.

“Let's go dude.” I said to him, Barry glanced at me and then back at Mark.

“No man, I don't fuck with his bitch ass.” He hissed the words.

“Barry please.” I had my hand reached out to him, pleading for him to just come along with us. Barry was still hesitant, but he could tell I was being serious. He stood up and followed me, and I began to follow Mark. Mark thanked me for getting Barry to conform and again I didn't respond. Mark said goodbye to Jack and then we all headed off to the door.

“Shouldn't me and Barry get guns or something?” I asked, Mark laughed loudly and dramatically.

“Yeah right, how about I just shoot myself and save you the trouble. No- you guys don't get guns until I trust you.” Mark answered, pick up his bag of handguns and various weapons, hoisting a shotgun over his shoulder. I heard Barry began to mumble, saying 'until you trust US?!' which emphasis on the words. Barry had told me before all of this happened he was never a morning person, always had to have coffee if he had a bad asleep and was easily irritated if the criteria wasn't met, so all of this just solidified the fact he hadn't had a good sleep.

Mark, Barry and I began to walk out the door and into the sunlight outside. Nothing was waiting for us out here but an open sky and fresh air. It was cold air, but there were no Drudgers so that was the good news. Mark was right when he was talking to Felix yesterday, once winter hit, everything would be twice as hard, and it would be best to try and go somewhere their was a community, their was strength in numbers. I was surprised Mark wanted to got o a community because of his superiority complex, but I agreed with his idea. Felix's girlfriend or not, survival was a matter of making hard decisions.

We walked in silence, I was alone with my thoughts, Barry was muttering some annoyances to himself and Mark was just breathing, in and out, leading us somewhere unknown. We were headed back to where me and Barry had set up our house, and for a moment I thought we were going back, but we passed the path in the forest that lead to our house and continued down the main road.

“Where exactly are we going?” Barry asked after 10 minutes of silence. Mark chirped up actually looking happy about Barry asking this.

“Good question Strawberry Short Temper! I have been wanting to check out a car dealership, however the main office seems to be crawling with Psychos and no one from my group wants to go in there,” Mark began to explain, I got a horrible pain in my stomach “all of the keys for the cars are in that office, so you can imagine what you two are going to get for me.” he finished, Barry waved his arms around in distress. 

“With no weapons?!” He shouted, Mark shushed him and shrugged.

“Improvise.” Mark chuckled. As we continued to walk, the car dealership came into view. The glass windows that covered the exterior of the store were covered in blood and dirt


	6. Chapter 6

## Chapter 6

There was no safe way of getting into the car dealership building, as much as I thought and planned how to get in there, I had no options that wouldn’t put me into the building and into the room with the car keys that didn’t risk me either getting killed or getting infected. Barry kept sounding off some ideas and would come back with the faults. I wasn’t trying to be nitpicky, but I knew that Barry didn’t think things through that well and always missed something important. 

“Eth, there is no safe way in there, that’s why I’m not going in myself.” Mark said. He was sitting on the hood of a red Mercedes Benz, it was still in good condition, he said it was the one he wanted the keys for. He didn’t even have a definitive idea that the keys for this specific car were still in the dealership, but he said he was willing to take that chance. Or, have me and Barry take that chance. 

“What are we going to do here? The inside is filled with Drudgers and the key room is behind them all. There is no way we can kill them all either, we’re outnumbered.” Barry explained. I nodded in agreeance with him. 

“We’re going to have to try. Maybe we can lead them out one by one and take them out the same, that way we aren’t overwhelmed and hopefully we can get in there without having any Drudgers left.” I explained, Barry nodded, agreeing with my plan. I turned to Mark and reached out my hand. 

“Can I at least have a knife or something?” I asked, Mark scratched his head and shrugged. 

“I’m not sure, you’re probably going to use it to kill me, ain’t that right.” Mark raised an eyebrow at me. I shook my head and gesture to the building.

“Mark, you have like 3 different guns on you, why would we bring a knife to a gunfight?” I asked him. He thought, and it looked like he was going to hand me a knife, reaching into his bag and digging around, but then Barry came up behind me and started to go off about how he could take Mark regardless of how many guns he had. That’s when Mark stopped.

“You don’t get social cues do you?” Mark growled at him. I told Barry to stop and stepped in front of him. 

“Give me the knife. I promise I won't try anything.” I said. Mark was hesitant, but he slowly handed me a small hunting knife. I took the cover off of it, revealing a slightly stained holographic blade. I held it by the handle, trying to get a feel for it. It had some weight to it, but nothing I couldn’t deal with. I thanked him, taking it in my hand and moving towards the door of the dealership. Barry came beside me and started whispering. 

“So, what’s the real plan?” I raised an eyebrow at Barry and continued to the door, checking the handle to see if it was locked. Luckily it wasn’t.

“What do you mean? We discussed this already, we take them out one by one until we have a safe path into the dealership.” I repeated. Barry didn’t look very pleased with my statement. 

“We’re not going to turn on Mark we just gained his trust.” I clarified, Barry began to complain but I just told him to shut up and open the door. I explained to open it only enough for one Drudger to come out so I can take care of them and then we would continue on. Barry still seemed displeased I wasn’t going to cut Mark’s head off with the hunting knife but I digress. Barry held the door open, waiting for one of the many Drudgers to come rushing out and over to us. It didn’t take long as I expected. One of them went right for the door, creating a ruckus on the inside. Barry slammed the door shut and held it there with all his weight as I approached the Drudger. They used to be a middle aged women, but now they were nothing more than a shouting mess of a person. I never really saw Drudgers as real people, it made it easier to kill them. 

I took the knife by the handle, grabbing the Drudger by the hair and quickly swiping at her head. The blade was sharp, and pierced her skin quickly, she instantly stopped moving and became dead weight in my hands. I retracted the knife, letting blood pour from the cut on her forehead as she fell to the ground. The knife dripped blood onto the concrete underneath me. 

“Ok, send out another.” I spoke. Barry opened the door as he did before, having to be quicker when he closed it because more of the Drudger’s were moving over to the door. Another Drudger approached me, and I used the same tactic with them. Hair grab to move them into the position and stabbing them through the skull with the knife. The same outcome was the same as it was with the first one. 

This process continued, and it was working, however each time a Drudger was let out more and more went over to the door and Barry was having an issue keeping the door fully closed now. 

“Ethan can you hurry up please? I don’t know how much longer I can hold this door, we gotta get a move on.” he called, the door was opening slightly and shutting quickly over and over again, Barry desperately tried to keep it shut. 

“I’m going as fast as I can!” I wasn’t lying, I really was disposing of these Drudgers to the best of my abilities. There wasn’t anything I could do to speed up the process. Barry let go of the door by an accident, the Drudgers having pushed it open. Two escaped instead of one this time. I tried to get one out of the way quickly and almost missed with the knife. I pulled on the handle but it was stuck. I tried my hardest to get the knife back from the head of the Drudger but it was stuck good. I placed my foot on their chest and kicked them hard, causing the knife to yank out and blood to pour on my hands and face. Suddenly, I got attacked from behind. I fell to the ground while struggling to get my knife. 

“Oh shit!” Barry yelled, I could see him trying to come over and help me, but I shouted at him not to. 

“Don’t! Keep the door shut!” I screamed, but it was too late. Barry had let go of the door too much and it swung open. The last 5 Drudgers came rushing out of the door, towards me and Barry. I was still struggling with the one who was on my back, swinging my knife at them wildly, only nicking their skin. Barry didn’t have a weapon so he resorted to punching and kicking, just trying to buy himself more time. I eventually landed an actual hit on the Drudger attacking me, sending the knife into their throat. They stopped moving soon after and I stood up as fast as I could, going to Barry’s aid. He was basically on the ground by the time I got over to him. 

I had to act fast. I grabbed one Drudger from above him and yanked them by the arm over to the concrete ground, causing them to fall over. I picked up my foot and used my heel to bash their face on the cement. Blood covered my shoe as I heard the crunch of their jaw against the clustered pebbles. I swiftly turned back to Barry, he shoved a Drudger over to me and I met their forehead with my blade. I took the knife out when they stopped moving and I let them fall to the ground like the other one. Three more left.   
Barry managed to kicked two away and shove one to the ground, leaving one for him to deal with. I managed to stab one in the side of the head which surrendered them to go down as well however the sudden shift from alive to dead weight caused them to fall on me and take me to the ground with them. I cursed and tried to push them off but they were much bigger and heavier than I was. I couldn’t see what Barry was doing, and I couldn’t move. I heard one of the other Drudgers coming storming over to me, screaming nonsensical terms to me as they dove in for an attack. I searched for my knife but it had fallen out of my hand when I fell, and I couldn’t reach it no matter how hard I tried. 

I then noticed it’s shiny holographic blade above me, in the hands of the Drudger that went in for the attack. They lifted their arm, the knife point right at my face, ready to slash away my life. I pulled the dead Drudger up so that they were covering my face, waiting for the impact, shutting my eyes and just hoping that the knife wouldn’t pierce through both of us. However, the impact never came, and soon the weight of the dead Drudger was taken off of me in one swift motion. I slowly opened my eyes again so see who I thought was Barry coming to my rescue, but when my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I realized it was actually Mark, standing over me with the Drudger that attacked me dead in one hand, and the holographic knife in the other. 

He was breathing with so much strain, inhaling and exhaling to calm down, his eyes locked on mine, not leaving. He didn’t say anything either, just breathed. It was quiet. 

“I-” 

“No, this was a stupid idea. Let’s just forget this happened. It’s clear now, that’s the important thing.” Mark cut me off before I could even speak, I was just going to tell him I was sorry because I figured he would be mad that me and Barry failed to complete the task he had set for us, but when I examined his facial expression a bit more, I realized that it was anger on his face, no, it was a look of worry. That look when you see your life flash before your eyes, or that look when someone you care about is about to slip away from you… That was his expression. 

We didn’t speak about the situation again, me Mark and Barry just recollected ourselves and Mark led us inside of the dealership. The doors for the office room where all the keys were located was open, and all of the Drudgers were cleared out by mine and Barry’s ruckus. Mark went inside and looked around for the keys to the car he wanted to steal, and finally he did find them. He took the keys and walked out of the dealership, making sure to close the door behind us so if we needed to come back we didn’t have to clear the building again. Throughout this entire exchange, up until he got into the car he didn’t say a word, and me and Barry didn’t say a word to each other or him either. I was still trying to piece things together, and wipe the blood from my face the best I could. 

Mark opened the door, getting inside the driver's seat and placing the key in the ignition. He turned the key, letting the engine run and the car started up. Then, and only then did he talk. 

“Oh god, thank god it works!” he shouted, he smiled so brightly, sitting behind the wheel of that red Mercedes. He leaned forward on the wheel and let out a laugh. He looked back up at me and Barry and smiled so genuinely. It was weird to see, especially because of how he acted back with the others. He paused and tapped on the wheel, ushering for me and Barry. 

“Well c’mon! Let’s go!” He smiled. Me and Barry obliged to what he said, getting into the car. I sat in the passenger's seat and Barry slipped into the back, laying across the seats with his feet up against the right window. Mark floored the gas and we went speeding out of the dealership car lot, the windows rolled down, and wind drying off the rest of the blood on my face. 

When we got back to the base, Mark pulled into the back loading dock with the car, parking it outside and locking it shut with the keys. He went inside shouting for everyone to come see him, calling what he called a ‘staff meeting’. Jack and Felix were adding some food to a pile that they had going on and Amy seemed to be cleaning out some weapons and reloading guns. Everyone stopped what they were doing and came over to Mark, who was standing proudly in front of them, the Mercedes keys in his hands, showing them off to the others. 

“Eth and Barry did it! They cleared out that dealership and now we have a whole lot of cars to pick from! We can finally get the fuck out of Dodge and-” 

“Mark! We just had this conversation yesterday! We can't leave!" Felix basically roared the words, cutting Mark off. Mark frowned at him and narrowed his eyes.

"Really Felix? We have to get the fuck out of here-"

"Yeah, and we will, with Marzia!" Felix yelled back, again cutting Mark off. As much as Mark seemed to be a threat to me and Barry, I felt that this Marzia person was a very touchy subject for both of them, and even the night before seemed to bring on a power struggle between the two men.

"No Felix we need to go now, do you understand how close winter is? If we wait too long the cars will freeze and then-"

"We will wait for Marzia! This is not negotiable! Marzia-" 

"Marzia is dead!" Mark finally had enough and shouted over top of Felix, not allowing him to continue cutting him off. Felix didn't speak, just analyzed the words that had just poured from Mark's mouth. Even though there were only three, he acted as if Mark recited a Shakespeare act to him. Felix finally came back to reality and stormed towards Mark.

"You take that back you bastard." Felix growled, Mark crossed his arms and made himself appear bigger then Felix, even though Felix was taller than him. 

"No. She ran off and she is not coming back. She's dead, and unless you want to end up like her we need to leave tomorrow." Mark said it in a stern, rough voice. I didn't listen to much authority nowadays, but the tone he used when he spoke that line I would have listened to in pure fear of what he would do if I didn't. Felix seemed phased, but not enough for him to just succumb to Mark's words. Ye just stepped away, turning around swiftly and walking off away from us. No one spoke for a while, then Mark broke the silence.

"Well, go on start packing. We'll go back and get the rest of the cars tomorrow. We are leaving this place." Mark states before he walked off in the opposite direction of Felix. Amy and Jack nodded and walked off as well, leaving me and Barry alone.

"We should get the hell out of here too," Barry said, starting towards the exit. I grabbed his arm and kept him in place.

"No no, you know someone is going to see us, that's a bad idea. The right time will come, don't worry." I assured him. He didn't look too pleased with me but I didn't really care. I went over to where me and him slept the night before and started to put some blankets in a pile, thinking that Mark would want us to take them. I also helped Amy and Jack gather suitcases and fill them with things like food and water. When there was nothing left for me to do, I sat on the edge of a mattress having a moment to myself. 

"You did really good out there." This was Mark's voice, he was behind me. I turned to face him and watched as he came and sat beside me, arms resting on his knees.

"Thank you." I said, taking a pause, "and thank you for saving me out there too." I added, Mark let out a pfft and shook his hands saying it was no biggie. I looked at him as he sat here, brushing off the fact that he just saved the life of a guy he didn't trust, the life of a guy he sent on a suicide mission. 

I didn't understand it, why he saved me. Me and Barry weren't given weapons for a reason, one of those reasons being Mark made it out to seem like he didn't care about our survival, and to be completely honest I don't think he did. Him saving me today was an outlier in the graph of his personality I was trying to create. It just didn't make sense. The next thing he did also didn't make sense. He pulled the hunting knife I was using earlier out of his bag. The blue cover was covering the blade so he held it by the black handle.

"I want you to have this, you know how to use it." Mark grinned, handing me the knife. I took it very hesitantly, unsure about it for the next 5 or so minutes. I took the cover off and sure enough it was there, sharp, holographic, and cleaned now. I could have pulled the cover off completely, turned to Mark and demand for him to let me and Barry go. I could have stabbed Mark right then and there, not allowing him to dictate this journey any longer. I could have ended it, I could have ended him,

But I didn't. Instead I thanked him for the knife, and he smiled and walked off. Telling me it was my knife now, and disappearing down one of the other isles. I started to think, why didn't I take that opportunity? Was it because I was warming up to the guy? Or was it because I had become susceptible to Stockholm syndrome? This wasn't like me, why did I suddenly care about other peoples lives in the new world? I just wanted to survive, and killing Mark then might have prolonged my life span. So why didn't I do it? Unfortunately I wasn't able to dwell on this thought much longer as a loud banging noise sounded from the metal garage door at the back of the Zellers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N hey bby's! I wanted to say thanks for reading this book and commenting on it and stuffz like that, it really makes me happy and I am glad you're all liking it so far!   
> I have the next few chapters outlined to a T so that means I am hoping to have some more consistent updating!  
> thanks again, see you guys soon!


	7. Chapter 7

## Chapter 7

"Everyone stay calm!" Why was Mark yelling this if he wanted us all to stay calm? If anything it was making everyone freak out more. The banging continued to sound as we all walked closer to the door. As we for closer, I started to pick out a voice. A woman's voice.

"Marzia!?" Mark called, and as soon as Mark said this Felix rushed in front of everyone and went to open the door. Mark told him to slow down because we didn’t know the situation but Felix didn’t listen and pulled the garage door open anyways. When the dim light from night outside filled the base of the loading room, I saw a girl come into focus. She was a bit shorter than I was, and she had long blonde hair with brown roots growing in. She was dressed in layers, a pink scarf hanging from her neck, it was covered in dirt and her outfit followed suit. I noticed a shiny pendant pinned onto her jacket, it looked like a logo of a pig, but I couldn't see it clear enough to say 100%

“Marzia! It is you!” Felix shouted, running up to her and embracing her in a huge hug. He smiled and kissed her, so happy to see her. I didn’t know how long she had been gone for, but from Mark’s outburst earlier, I could only assume they had thought she was dead. I could tell Felix was fighting off tears, and Jack and Amy were going to join in the hug as well to celebrate Marzia’s return. 

However Mark seemed put off by her return, it was almost like he sensed something we didn’t. He looked like he had been threatened, and that worried me. Even though I hadn’t known Mark for that long, he didn’t seem like someone who was easily threatened. So why the return of one of his friends scared him was a mystery to me, but only for a moment. My questions got answered as soon as Marzia spoke. 

“I brought people, they are from a safe zone. I found the safe zone.” Marzia spoke. Amy and Jack immediately stepped away from her, and Felix looked at her in a concerned way as well.

“You brought people?” he asked, she nodded cheerfully and pulled on Felix’s hand. 

“Yeah, come on I’ll show you.” She said. Felix didn’t leave with her, instead he stood there and let her pull on his hand. She gave me a confused look and pulled again.

“Haha, Felix don’t be like this come with me.” She told him. Mark was getting uneasy again, I could tell, the way he stood beside me, he looked like he was ready to attack. I was getting second hand anxiety from him, and I felt sick to my stomach. 

“Don’t go.” Mark finally said something, Felix gave him a dirty look and pointed to Mark sternly. 

“What? You don’t trust Marzia now?! Is that it?!” Felix reputed, Mark shook his head and tried to convey his thoughts just by looking at Felix. I didn’t think Felix understood it, however I could understand what Mark was getting at. It wasn’t a matter of not trusting Marzia, the situation felt wrong. 

“Felix, you-” 

“No Mark! I don’t have to listen to you! You are not the boss of me!” Felix shouted, he wasn’t listening to reason all because he was mad at Mark. Marzia said that she had other people with her, and found a safe zone, but none of that seemed right. Felix turned back to Marzia and I got this shot of adrenaline rush through me. If Felix wasn’t going to listen to Mark, he was going to listen to me.

“Felix don’t! I know we don’t know each other that well but maybe that’s a good thing in this situation! Something is weird here, don’t just go off. We don’t know what she’s talking about!” I called to him, and he did stop when I spoke. I thought he was going to turn around and tell me he didn’t want to listen to me either, because if he didn’t listen to the guy he had known for what seemed to be most of this shit show, then why would he listen to the guy that he helped kidnap less then a week ago?

“Felix, c’mon, let’s go to the safe zone,” Mariza spoke, she reached out her hand and smiled at Felix, her eyes were calling him over. Felix looked at me, and then back at Marzia, then to me again. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, really evaluating the circumstances. 

“...No, no Marzia why don’t you come inside with us, we’ll talk about this,” Felix suggested. Marzia’s expression went from friendly and sweet, to something more somber. She frowned deeply and shook her head. 

“Pity.” was all she said, and then I heard the sounds of about 30 guns being loaded and pointed at us. I could see people come out of the darkness of the night from behind Marzia, pointing all kinds of guns at us. My heart skipped a beat. Instinctively, I balled my fists, leaning forward, ready to attack right after I figured out a plan. A hand rushed down and stopped on my chest, holding me back. I looked up to see who it was, thinking it was Barry, but it wasn’t. It was Mark. 

“Don’t move Eth.” Mark said, keeping me beside him. Marzia looked at us 5 that were behind Felix, and then at Felix again, shaking her head. 

“I didn’t want to do this, you should have just came with me. Now you’re going to come with us anyways and we’re not going to trust you.” Marzia spoke. She gestured for the people with the weapons to come over to us. I didn’t know what to do. Me and Barry were now getting kidnapped with our kidnappers. I was out of ideas. Me and Barry should have got the fuck out of here in the first place, the first chance we got. Now we were fucked, truely. 

The people rounded up me and the others, pushing us over to Marzia. Marzia lead us all over to two trucks, they looked like the ones that the army used in wars, ones that all of the soldiers stood in before rushing into the battlefield. Marzia got into the front of the truck and turned it on, the engine roaring. Me, Mark and Amy got shoved into one truck and Felix, Jack and Barry got shoved into the other one. I was worried about not being in the same truck as Barry as I knew how impulsive he could be in situations like this, it made him unstable. I only noticed that Mark was still holding on to me when the truck started moving. The jolt of the tires pushing forward caused me to bump into his hand, and this is when he moved it. 

My mind was going a mile a minute. I had no idea where these people were taking us and what Marzia was talking about. From context with what she said and also with what I have overheard Felix say to Mark it seemed that Mariza had left the group in search of a safe zone, and from what Marzia had said, she found one. However I felt like the 40 people holding weapons at us didn't give off much of a safe zone vibe. I was trying so hard to not jump into fight or flight mode and just keep quiet. We must have been driving for 20 minutes when Marzia finally spoke. 

"Were almost there." Marzia spoke, driving over a bump. She took a left turn, and then a right, and I saw something in the near distance. It was big fence covered walls, with lights shining from behind them. There were people looking over the walls, with guns, patrolling the area. We pulled up to a sliding door, it was about half the size of the wall itself. When Marzia got close she honked and the door slowly pulled open. Marzia drove inside, and the car behind us followed close. I Marzia pulled into a lot with the car, and stopped it. 

The inside looked like an army base, I was certain it must have been one before this whole thing happened. There were rounded, house like structures lining the inside, and many other army vehicles roaming around. I even saw a tank in the far left corner of the compound. There were so many people here, at least 100. Almost everyone had guns, and everyone was doing something. Either going into the structures or other bigger buildings to get weapons or supplies, or some were eating and making food on charcoal BBQ's and fires. The atmosphere was loud, and busy. 

"Follow me." Marzia said, opening up the back of the truck and ushering me Mark and Amy onto the ground, moving us over to Barry, Jack and Felix. She locked eyes with Felix for a moment, and he looked deeply hurt, Marzia didn't even blink, and she continued to lead us into a big white building. She marched us inside with a few people pointing guns at us to follow her. She led us down man flights of stairs, so many that the noise of the bustling compound above us drowned away when we got to the bottom level. That's when I saw jail cells. Two armed men stood outside of the cells, patrolling them. When they saw Marzia, they saluted her. 

"Lock these 6 up, Mr. Dawson's going to want to have a word with them." Marzia spoke. The 2 men nodded and opened up the bars. As Marzia turned to leave, Felix broke out of line and grabbed her arm. All of the guns in the room pointed at him, and Marzia called for them not to shoot.

"What are you doing honey?! Why are you doing this?! Where are we?!" Felix cried out, Marzia didn't speak, just removed his hand from her arm and continued walking back up the stairs. Fix was restrained by the armed people, and tossed into the cell with me, Mark, Amy, Jack and Barry all following behind. The barred doors were shut behind us, and locked with the click of a key, and silence poured over the room. I don't think anyone was able to process what had just happened, and neither could I. However, I think I was more angry at the fact that I had never come across this place before. How could I have missed something as big and populated as this? 

"Hey, are you ok?" This was Barry's voice, he came over to stand by me, patting my back, I nodded and asked him if he was ok, and he assured me he was.

"How come we've never seen this place before?" He asked me, I shook my head.

"I have no idea, maybe we just never explored this far out." I spoke, Barry nodded, but I could tell he was still confused. 

"What about you guys," I asked, facing Mark and the others, "did you know this place existed?" I asked. Mark shook his head as well.

"No, no. Marzia went looking for a safe zone, she wanted to go alone. She was our explorer. She went off while we stayed at the plaza, and to be honest I thought she was dead." Mark explained. This much I knew from context. Felix looked very disheveled, Jack was trying to comfort him.

"I don't know what's going on with Marzia…" Felix mumbled out, but no one answered him because no one had an answer for him. I tried to wrap my head around what was going on but I couldn't. I had no idea. All I knew was I needed to be ready for anything, and be ready to escape the first chance I got. I would need to take Barry with me, and maybe-

BANG!

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door slamming from up the stairs. The hollowness of the room made the noise echo. I heard someone start walking down the cement stairs, along with 3 people behind them. Step by step it got louder and louder, until I saw someone walk into my view. They were a man, average height, they had auburn hair, styled messily, brushed upwards but to the side at the same time. They had pale skin, and a medium build, along with light green eyes. They were wearing a black hoodie, with a white logo of a pig on it, the pigs eyes were X'ed out as if it was dead, it was the same design Marzia had on her pendant. The man stopped in front of the cell and stared at us, arms crossed. 

"Marzia, really? We don't even have to lock these losers up they don't look like they can hurt a fly." It wasn't the main man who spoke first, it was someone behind him. Along with Marzia there were 2 other guys, the one who spoke was a slender man, with short dark brown hair and pale complexion as well. He was wearing the same thing the Auburn haired man was wearing, but his hoodie was white with black pig. The other guy was wearing the white hoodie too, but he had light brown hair, some facial scruff, and glasses. 

"They are more threatening than you would think." Marzia explained, causing the dark brown haired guy to laugh. The main man, in the black hoodie snickered, and stared at us behind the bars, still not talking. It took a while for him to finally speak up. 

"Well, I heard you guys were disobeying my third in command, Marzia, why would you be doing that?" He spoke. His voice was deeper than the first dark brown haired man. No one answered him. I looked at Mark, noticing his fist clench, I thought for sure he was going to say something but he didn't. Maybe he was waiting for the right time. The man laughed again, shifting his weight.

"What? Now you're all disobeying me? Do you know who I am?" He asked, of course none of us knew that answer. He stepped forward towards the bars, turning his head to the side as he peered in. He smirked, and it made me step back. 

"My name is Mr. Dawson, and if you guys don't start listening to me, we're going to have a lot of problems." I heard guns load up and point as us again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm screaming I'm so excited to be in this new setting but I'm also so scared ahhhhhhhhhhh
> 
> Also side note I guess I started this fic off calling Sean "Jack" as in Jacksepticeye and it's too late to change it now so sorry just an FYI


	8. Chapter 8

## Chapter 8

I didn’t like confrontation, but if it came up I wasn’t going to shy away from it. Barry was the same way, this is what made us such a good team. I was a bit more level headed then Barry was though, I liked to take a moment to think about the situation and then decide a course of action, whereas Barry just liked to go in guns blazing, shooting first and asking questions later. 

Mark seemed to give off this same vibe, but he was more tethered to being the most powerful man in the room, and having everything in his control. Amy, Jack and Felix all sort of went in the same category with me, simply because I didn’t know them that well. Felix seemed very stubborn, and that was pretty much all of the information I had about him. Me versus authority was fine, I had ways to cope and figure out the most reasonable course of action, however it was too bad not everyone was like that behind the bars of this prison cell. 

“We don’t have to listen to you.” This was Mark, he had his arms crossed and his face was inches away from the bars. Mr. Dawson, who’s first name I still didn’t know, was looking around as us in this cell, he was running his tongue under his teeth, thinking, analyzing everything anyone was saying. 

“Oh but you do, you see, I’m not the ones in a cage.” Dawson said, not breaking eye contact with Mark as he spoke. Mark looked like he was going to punch him, however he was blocked by the bars. I tried to think of a way out of here, but the cell was shut tight. The best course of action would be to just hang tight and wait for an opening. 

“I’m going to fucking kill you.” Clearly Barry had a different approach to the situation. Dawson stopped walking and went right up to the bars, looking at Barry through them, examining him from head to toe. 

“Really? Is that so?” Dawson began, Barry went to go and say something, but I nudged his shoulder trying to get him to shut up. Dawson laughed at this and shook his head. 

“You lot are funny, but annoying. You’re much too headstrong. I think I’m going to take Strawberry Shortcake and Mr. Macho here to our cleansing room, what do you guys think?” Dawson spoke, looking back at Marzia and the other two guys. I got really tense at that statement, I didn’t want any of us to be separated again, especially Mark. Marzia and one of the guys nodded, but the other one with glasses objected. 

“Umm, don’t you think they should be given another chance? They were just placed into a cell with no explanation after being kidnapped by Marzia…” he said, Dawson stopped and swiftly turned to him, almost growling. 

“Garrett, for the last time, I am the leader here because I was chosen by Uno himself and I don’t appreciate you questioning Uno’s choices on who the authority is around here.” Dawson spoke to the guy with glasses. I only understood some of what he said, everytime anyone spoke I just had more and more questions and I assumed none of them would get answers. With the way this whole situation was going though, I didn’t know if I wanted any answers or if I just wanted to get the heck out of here. 

"You do make a decent point. I'll give you guys all one more chance, you'll stay the night in there and if there are no outbursts then you won't have to go into the cleansing chamber." Dawson spoke, the other guy who I still didn't know the name of rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

"Shane you're being no fun!" He spoke, he was talking to Dawson, so I assumed his first name must have been Shane. I didn't know if I wanted to address him that way though, at least not to his face, he seemed like someone who wouldn't want that. Shane growled and turned to face the other guy.

"Ryland. You are just as bad as Garrett, can you not!" Shane shouted. Ryland said something under his breath and then walked off, Garrett following him along with Marzia. Shane looked back at us and smirked, waving as he left. 

“Make sure you all behave, I don’t want to have to go back on my choice.” Shane spoke, and with that they all left, and me and everyone else behind the bars were alone. It was silent for a while, no one even moved. Then it was Mark who spoke first. 

“What the fuck is going on here?” he asked, and everyone nodded in agreeance with him. I really didn’t have an answer for him, I was just as confused as everyone else. However I didn’t really care about getting answers at this point, as the only thing I could think about was getting out of here. I didn’t like not knowing what was going on, but I would much rather have to deal with ignorance then possible death. 

“What’s the plan Mark?” Jack asked, Mark didn’t look like he had an answer, he was just thinking. I had noticed that Mark seemed to be the leader of this group, just as I would see myself as the leader of me and Barry. We both were the ones with the plan, but at this moment I didn’t have a plan, and Mark’s silence made me think that he also didn’t have one. We were sitting ducks, behind bars, awaiting the call of a mad man who wanted to put us in some cleansing chamber. I racked my brain for any ideas, any thoughts, any plans. There was only one idea I had. 

“We should just wait for someone to open this cell.” I spoke, this got immediate responses from everyone in the cell, everyone was immediately offended by my statement. Mark cut everyone off and told them to shut up, bringing the cell back to a silence. 

“Eth’s right, we have no other options. We can’t get out of here at all until someone with keys opens these bars. Maybe when someone comes to let us out we take them down, hopefully there will be more of us then there is of them.” Mark explained, there wasn’t as much of an uproar after that statement but Felix did protest it. 

“Why don’t we just stay here, I mean Marzia is still alive and she’s been here for a while.” Felix stated, Mark narrowed his eyes at him and frowned. 

“No, we’re not going to stay here, they put us in a jail cell, it doesn’t seem very welcoming. Not to mention they want to put us in some type of cleansing chamber.” Mark explained. Felix and Mark started to argue again, with Jack and Amy chiming in to agree with Mark. through all of this chaos I almost didn’t notice Barry. He was mumbling something to himself and looked deep in thought. I turned to him and we made eye contact, and he stopped. The talking around us also died down when everyone noticed I was looking at Barry. He looked concerned.

“What’s up?” I asked, Barry cleared his throat and took a shaky breath. 

“That thing he said, about being chosen by Uno, and also the pig logos on their clothing… We need to get out of here.” Barry spoke, his voice was laced with concern, and his eyes showed fear, real fear. 

“What do you know that we don’t?” Mark asked him. Barry seemed very timid about the topic, but he seemed more scared than anything. He scratched an invisible itch on his arm and cleared his throat. 

“So, before all of this, I used to be really into the dark web, I didn’t ever do anything bad on there but mine bitcoin and stupid stuff like that. I came across a page, a really messed up page, that talked cleansing people to appease the lord Uno, and there were these horrible pictures of what they did to traitors… Even with everything that is going on right now it is still the worst stuff I have ever seen…” Barry explained. 

“So what? Uno is a popular word, it might not be the same thing.” Felix spoke, Barry shook his head.

“It’s a cult, their logo is that pig with the X’ed out eyes… I am certain it’s the same, or a copycat cult. Either way, we are in cultist territory, and we need to leave as soon as possible.” Barry explained. A chill ran down my spine and I instantly felt unsafe. Drudgers I could deal with, cultists had a different feel to them. I didn’t know what to do or how to feel, if I was out of ideas before I was even more so out of ideas now. In the mits of all of this, I almost didn’t notice someone come into the room. I tried to shush everyone, and Mark caught wind of it too. We all stopped talking and watched as someone walked down the stairs. 

It was one of the three guys that were here before, I believe he was referred to as Garrett. He came up to the front of the bars, looking at his nervously, he didn’t look very confrontational, and he looked almost like he wasn’t supposed to me here. Mark went right up to him, peering through the bars, wrapping his hand around two and trying to stare him down. 

“What do you want?” Mark growled at him, Garrett didn’t say anything at first, and took a breath as if trying to calm himself down. It was weird to see the guy on the outside of the jail cell nervous to a point where he was almost unable to speak. 

“You guys won't be able to escape this place easily,” he finally spoke, this seemed to make Mark more angry. 

“Oh yeah? What makes you so sure? You don’t know us.” Mark hissed.

“And you don’t know Shane.” Garrett said, his voice was low and filled with so much worry I didn’t think it was possible to get second hand anxiety from a person, but this situation just proved me wrong. 

“Listen, I don’t want to be here either, I’ve been trying to get out for a long time, but haven’t been able to. Marzia always talks about how strong and tough you guys are, I mean, before she got brainwashed by Shane. When I saw you, I figured you would be my best bet of getting out of here.” Garrett spoke. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. Garrett was facing Mark so I turned to him as well for a response, but Mark also didn’t respond. The world was so different now, and there were so many people you couldn’t trust in it. 

“Ok.” Barry was the one who finally spoke, everyone looked at him in confusion. 

“What?” I replied to him, he shrugged. 

“Ok, we’ll trust him.” Barry continued. This caused everyone to go off. The entire room turned into nothing but yells and curses, it was just a big argument. Everyone seemed to be against Barry, against trusting this random man who worked for the enemy. I often took Barry's side in any type of situation. He did the same for me, all the time, but I didn't know if he was making the right decision here. I didn't add to the argument as he couldn't hear my voice anyways, I just looked at him as he stood there and ignored everyone's voices, and we made eye contact, and I knew he was being 100% dead ass serious about this decision. Finally Mark raised his voice louder than everyone else's and the noise stopped. 

“Who put you in charge, Strawberry Shortcake?” Mark asked, Barry shrugged and walked over to Mark, nudging his elbow as he passed him and went to go talk to Garrett on the other side of the bars. 

“Well, I figure if we’re going to die, we mine as well make some cute friends along the way, and unlike you, I don't just want to sit here and do nothing.” Barry spoke to Mark, Mark didn’t say anything back, he just watched as Barry placed his hands on the bars and smiled at Garrett. 

“So, what’s the plan gorgeous?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N Hey hey hey  
> thanks for your continued patience with me in updating this.  
> I am trying to get some more chapters in asap but with the current state of the world, everything's been so crazy!  
> I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy and washing their hands!  
> you are all in my thoughts!  
> hope you enjoy this chapter!

## Chapter 9

Someone was going to die. I didn’t know who, and I didn’t know how, but soon, they would be dead. I wanted to believe it wasn’t going to be me, but I didn’t know for sure. When Barry and Garrett were finished talking about the details of an escape plan, Garrett left and Barry took a seat on the floor beside my feet, just grinning. I was waiting to see if someone was going to say something, and sure enough Mark did. 

“What’s wrong with you?! You probably got us all killed! We don’t know who he is-” 

“Well his name is Garrett so we know that much.” Barry smirked back. Mark growled and ran his hands through his hair, clearly frustrated with Barry’s responses. Mark walked over to me then, trying to keep his cool, but he looked as though he was a bomb ready to explode. 

“Talk to your friend Eth, before I lose my shit.” Mark growled, I watched him walk off to the further side of the cell to go and speak with Jack. I turned to Barry and went to sit beside him, leaning against his shoulder. 

“What are you doing?” I asked, Barry shrugged and looked at me, his eyes locked on mine, he had a very serious expression on his face. 

“I have a good feeling about him.” Barry spoke, I laughed at him and shook my head. 

“Barry, that might have been a good answer before when it was just me and you, but those folks over there are not as instinct driven as us and will probably not accept that answer.” I explained. Me and Barry used to just do what we felt was right, go where we felt we should, but even when we were with our other group we had to think about what would work for everyone, not just us. I guess it had just been too long since we had been with other people, we had forgotten how to function with others. 

“So what are you going to tell them?” I asked, Barry shrugged again and slumped in his spot on the floor. 

“I don’t know, you are better at talking then I am. Just wing it.” Barry laughed. I shook my head at how ridiculous he was, and stood up, leaving him to slump on the ground. 

“Oh, and I think Mark likes you anyways so use your charm.” Barry teased. I tried to ignore his statement, but for some reason it stuck in my mind. Was it really that obvious that Mark liked me? I hinted at it a bit, the way he spoke to me, the way he seemed to connect with me faster than he did Barry even though he had known us for the same amount of time. Barry also liked to be a trick ass bitch though, so I didn’t let it get to me too much. I walked over to Mark, butting into his conversation with Jack. 

“Barry says he checks out.” I said, Jack was the first to object, he started going off to Mark about how they can’t trust us and how the only reason they are even in this mess is because of us - which wasn’t true but I digressed - Mark didn’t listen to him and just looked at me, and I looked at him. I thought about what Barry had said, about Mark having a thing for me. I wondered if I could use it to my advantage, but it seemed I didn’t even need to do anything to charm him, as he told Jack to shut up. 

“If Eth think’s he checks out then I trust him. That's 3 against 3 now.” Mark spoke, Jack was clearly not impressed by the answer, but it was the answer Mark went with anyways. 

“Well, if Mark’s in I’m in.” Amy smiled, walking over to him. Jack and Felix looked unamused by all of our answers. I was even a bit dumbfounded that everyone was now agreeing with Barry’s lunacy. I personally trusted Barry, but I was not expecting everyone else too as well. 

“So what’s the plan then? We wait for Garrett to come back?” I asked, turning back to Barry. Barry shrugged and placed his hands behind his head. 

“We wait.” he said. I could tell this response made Mark instantly regret trusting Barry and myself and I narrowed my eyes at the pink haired douche. Barry noticed the anger that flooded the room because of his response and laughed. 

“Jeez, it’s ok it’s under control, Garrett says he has been trying to put together an escape plan for a while, he just needed more people. You lot were in ear shot, you’re telling me you didn’t hear anything?” Barry laughed again. This answer was a bit better than the other one he gave but it still radiated the same energy. Mark just rolled his eyes and took a seat on the floor as well, rubbing his temple with his thumbs. It was silent again and I thought for once in this entire situation it would stay quiet until Garrett or someone else came back, but I was wrong. This group just wouldn’t let this issue end. 

“This is stupid, we need to make a plan where we get out of here, get Marzia and-” 

“Get Marzia?!” Mark cut Felix off, yelling over top of him again. Then another argument broke out about Marzia and whose side she was on, obviously Mark didn’t trust her and Felix seemed to think everything she did was right. It was all just the same arguments over and over again with them, and it was getting boring. As I was trying not to get on anyone's bad side, I just let them hash it out, whilst sharing looks with Barry who was laughing at them. I felt like he was not just taking everything as a joke.

Finally, what I thought was going to happen happened. 

Someone opened the door from above us, storming down the stairs, I already knew it wasn’t Garrett just by the way they walked in. As they started to come into view, I could make out it was Shane; or Mr. Dawson, it seemed to be different depending on who was speaking to him or about him. He walked into view whilst shaking his head and crossing his arms. 

“You guys are so loud! Are you sure you are all a group? Or did Marzia gather you all at random?” Shane asked, no one answered. He shrugged and ran his hands across the bars. 

“Well, whatever it may be I am getting sick of it, so the next person who talks gets a warning and if you talk after that you get a gun shot.” Shane threatened, of course someone in this group decided to challenge this right away, and that someone was Mark. 

“You don’t get to tell us what to do!” yeah Mark, I am sure that’s going to work… Shane laughed at him and shook his head, moving over to the bars, he unlocked the gate, and I think everyone inside went crazy for a second. Shane moved too quickly for anyone to really react, and by the time I went to go swing at him with my fist, he had already tossed Mark outside of the cell. 

“Oh, you want to fight too huh soft boy?” Shane growled at me, he grabbed my arm and tossed me out of the cell as well. I laid on the floor beside Mark as Shane locked up the cell again, Barry was yanking on the bars yelling at Shane to leave me alone but it seemed like Shane didn’t care. He looked down at me on the ground, and before I could get up he sent his foot right into my chest, knocking the wind out of me. I fell back on the ground and clutched my chest, my eyes closed tight. 

“Eth!” I heard Mark shout, but I didn’t see him. I was assuming Shane knocked him down as well, because I could hear him crashing to the ground. My view was cutting in and out, so I could only make little things out. I saw Shane, then I saw more people running down the stairs. I did take note that I had seen none of them before, so it wasn’t Marzia or Garrett or Ryland. Two people started grabbing my arms and hoisting me up, I tried to fight back but I got punched in the stomach. I kept feeling drowsy, but I fought to not pass out. 

I heard Mark shouting, I saw him fighting, punching and kicking. 

“Eth! Don’t touch him! Eth! Eth!”

Eventually, it did become too much, and I drifted off into darkness. 

***

I woke up to pitch blackness, I didn’t even know I was awake until I started to gain feeling back in my arms and legs, and felt the cold floor underneath me. I couldn’t see anything, not even shapes. No matter how hard I tried, there was nothing. My hearing started to trickle back to me, and I heard breathing. 

At first I thought it was mine, but it wasn’t. My breathing was steady and calm, this other breathing I heard was much faster, more on edge. Angery. I decided to go for a guess. 

“Mark?” I called out, and sure enough he answered. 

“Eth? Is that you?” he replied, I replied with a yes, and tried to follow his voice to find him in this pitch black room. I called for him again so that I could hear him again, trying my best to sway my arms and find him. Soon, I walked into something, and fell backwards. I slowly got up, feeling in front of me with my hands, letting my fingertips run across what seemed to be a plastic wall. It felt thin, but not thin enough to break with my bare hands. 

"Mark! Are you behind this wall?" I shouted, Mark answered back, and his voice sounded almost directly in front of me, just behind the wall. I still couldn't see anything, no matter how hard I focused my eyes. 

"I'm here Eth, but where the fuck is here!?" Mark asked, banging his fist on the plastic separating us. I banged against it too, trying to find a weak spot, but coming up empty. 

"Damnit. What the hell is going on?” I called, suddenly I heard a noise, it sounded like something opening from above me. I looked up and saw the smallest bit of light coming from a circular shape within the ceiling. With the little bit of light, things started to come into view. In front of me was a clear wall, it stretched all the way to the two walls of the room, and on the other side, sure enough was Mark. there was nothing else in the room, just emptiness. 

Then there was another noise, a sort of spritzing noise, one that was coming from the circular light source above me. I saw the outline of a gas shroud down towards me from the ceiling. I didn’t know what it was, but there was no way it was good. I pulled my shirt over my face, desperately trying not to inhale whatever was raining down on me. Mark started to bang on the wall that was dividing us, shouting. 

“Ethan?! Ethan?!” he shouted. It was the first time he called me by my full name. It was the first time I felt that he thought I was in true danger. BANG, BANG, BANG. He was trying so hard to break the wall between us. The gas continued to fill the room and I began to cough. It was scratching my throat, hurting my eyes, everything was getting blurry and darker then it was before. 

“Ethan! Stay with me!” Mark called, I fell over on the ground, unable to hold the shirt up to my face any longer, and my eyes shut. 

“Mark… I…”

“Ethan! No! Stay awake!” 

“Mark… I…” 

I blacked out yet again.


End file.
